Devices. Stealth

[Snarky]

I enjoy stealth blasting   Who doesnt?  Way better than assassins strike.  Popping a Lt from extreme range.  The rest of his posse are dead before they get halfway across the gap

 

My current blaster project is a mid 30s redside Energy Time. with stealth and invisibility. I really enjoy invisibility for cruising to the end of a map

 

i know there are some oddities to the inherent Devices stealth power. I think it works slightly different than normal stealth powers?  Does not stack and/or is somehow incompatible?

 

i am wondering because i am considering trying AR/Devices (again). Some things i love. Some not so much

 

any tips are appreciated 
 

 

[Xandyr]

I don't believe Field Operative stacks with any other form of concealment. 

[Novacat]

There's not much differences, just less drawbacks.

Stealth, in the pool, is a 35ft one, and grants 1.75% defense(all), but comes with -35% Run and Fly speeds

The Stealth IOs from the movement sets are 30ft, obviously take up a slot, but have no speed penalty

Field Operative is the Sustain power of /Devices. It's not only 35ft with 1.75% Def(all); it has no penalties, costs nothing to toggle on, and instead offers 225% (half of which, more than 2 and a half Healths, is enhaneceable) Regen and +50% (that's two Sustains, fully enhanceable) Recovery.

 

And yes they can stack, just not toggles (stealth and field operative keeps you at 35ft, but the IO and super-speed and field operative all stack together). But you may not need/want additional stealth sources since you could also just toss smoke grenades. If you combine the IO somewhere (I usually just stuff one in Sprint) you'll have a bit more than a bane's cloak on its own, but the thing with the grenades is that some enemies like rikti drones and knives of artemis ignore stealth entirely, whereas blinding them works fine.

 

It IS your level 20 power, and the only reason it's not an earlier level power is because it only becomes available at 20th.

 

Only other real advice is don't forget targeting drone it's a damage bonus across the board now.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Novacat

[Bopper]

12 minutes ago, Novacat said:

There's not much differences, just less drawbacks.

Stealth, in the pool, is a 35ft one, and grants 1.75% defense(all), but comes with -35% Run and Fly speeds

The Stealth IOs from the movement sets are 30ft, obviously take up a slot, but have no speed penalty

The speed debuffs were removed from stealth, so you're good on movement. As for the stealth IO, I just slot it in one of my many prestige sprints, and just designate that sprint as my free stealth power.

[Novacat]

You'll note I pointed the same out in my bit about stacking for the IO

You sure stealth doesn't have a speed penalty anymore?

[Bopper]

6 minutes ago, Novacat said:

You'll note I pointed the same out in my bit about stacking for the IO

You sure stealth doesn't have a speed penalty anymore?

I did see the note, I was commenting more on the "costs a slot" aspect. Yeah, I'm sure. That was changed late summer if I recall. It was around the time they were having the translucency bug where your character would look completely invisible on the screen.

 

Honestly, I miss the speed debuff. I am too slow to react and like the feel of slightly sprinting more than full on sprinting.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Bopper

[Bopper]

9 minutes ago, Novacat said:

You'll note I pointed the same out in my bit about stacking for the IO

You sure stealth doesn't have a speed penalty anymore?

Here it is. 

 

[Shred Monkey]

I'm not sure it has been mentioned... I'm fairly certain you can't actually turn on both stealth (pool power) and field operative (devices stealth power) at the same time.  Clearly field operative is better between the, two since it also has your end and regen boosts and costs no endurance.

 

Note, that you get full invis from having field operative on and a stealth IO in a travel power (which can be slotted in sprint).

[Doomguide2005]

As long as we're talking about stealth last time I checked there is an sg base empowerment that gives 25ft of stealth and it stacked with the other forms.

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

I'm not sure it has been mentioned... I'm fairly certain you can't actually turn on both stealth (pool power) and field operative (devices stealth power) at the same time.  Clearly field operative is better between the, two since it also has your end and regen boosts and costs no endurance.

 

Note, that you get full invis from having field operative on and a stealth IO in a travel power (which can be slotted in sprint).

full invis?  really?

 

[Novacat]

Nah not really.

With 65ft stealth any NPC other than Turrets, Giant Monsters and Snipers will generally be incapable of seeing you - they'd need perception buffs or be a type that flat-out ignores stealth (you know the ones) to do so (this is where smoke grenade comes in).

 

Even then those who can see you will only do so once you're that much closer than normally. In practice that means a lot of snipers high up on the rooftops won't see you either, being like 90-100ft away in what would normally have been their aggro radius. But things with perception bonuses, longer sight ranges or or that ignore stealth will know you're there once you do get close enough.

 

The trick, then, is that as a Blaster, the edge of your range may be still outside the detection range of most of them thanks to your stealth, so if they're not the type to be toebombed, hit'em from afar.

[Shred Monkey]

12 hours ago, Snarky said:

full invis?  really?

 

By "full invis" I meant you can walk into a spawn of anything that doesn't have improved detection and not be seen.  Yes, field op + stealth IO gives this level of invis.  It's the same as Stealth + a stealth IO or super speed + stealth IO, or just the invisibility power by itself. 

 

Things that see through this are pretty rare.  Rikti drones are the most common.  Those Eyeballs in Shadowshard... I'm pretty sure there's a longbow that has +perception, but I don't know which one.  Snipers yes, but there's not many of those.   You have to be aware of the +damage eliminators in a CoT map.  

Edited February 21, 2020 by Shred Monkey

[Novacat]

Actually snipers don't ignore stealth as far as I can tell. It's just that because their sight radius is like 150 feet instead of 55 or less, even 65ft of stealth will still leave them shooting your ass beginning a little under a hundred feet away. 

 

Stealth will let you get in your own snipe's range and deal with it before they know what hit'em though.

[Snarky]

I normally run brutes and tanks.  Who even has snipers? This is usually just “moderate environmental damage” i tend to ignore while chasing toward sappers, medics, and ruin mages

 

also is the devices buff on AR sniper rifle Still as sweet as it was or did that get modified?

Edited February 21, 2020 by Snarky

[r0y]

On 2/20/2020 at 11:53 AM, Xandyr said:

I don't believe Field Operative stacks with any other form of concealment. 

Field Operative + Stealth IO in sprint = 65.0' stealth radius.  Done.

[r0y]

On 2/21/2020 at 6:43 AM, Snarky said:

I normally run brutes and tanks.  Who even has snipers? This is usually just “moderate environmental damage” i tend to ignore while chasing toward sappers, medics, and ruin mages

 

also is the devices buff on AR sniper rifle Still as sweet as it was or did that get modified?

AR/Dev sniping is pretty sick, they recently "fixed" /dev, so now the targeting drone has the "crit ring" (e.g. stalkers) when out of combat to indicate the additional 60% damage (on top of it's constant 20% damage buff).  Sniping with /dev is the second-best experience in the game for sniping.  Second only to the utterly broken (why?) crit-insta-snipe scrappers can get (lol).

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by r0y