Stealth Heals?

[Miltonaut]

The Stealth and Invisibility powers of the Concealment pool state that using attack powers will cause you to be discovered. But what about non-attack powers like heals?

 

I'm thinking of picking them up for my Empath. Would I stay stealthed if I was on a team and all I did was heal?

[Spaghetti Betty]

As far as I know, using any power that affects a target other than yourself breaks stealth.

[fitzsimmons]

Test it.  Monitor the associated combat attribute and see if it drops after healing someone.

[Greycat]

Healing does not break stealth.

 

Though you should do more on your team than "just heal." Don't be someone who can be replaced with /ah and a pile of green inspirations.

[Mitchell]

A number of powers can be used while invisible. My main "HP Lovecat", Illusion-Empath Controller, has only 4 powers that draw agro. Without drawing agro She can stand in the middle of an enemy group and disable the 2 biggest Non AV threats, Perma-buff all 7 team mates with +22% to +34% Defense and Clear mind, as well as 900% Regen and 300% Endurance recovery 2/3 up time, and  Perma AB for another 900% Regen on the "problem child" of the group 🙂. After that I seldom need to heal? Even so there have been instances where part of the team wipes and I have arrived just in time to throw a few heals or buffs as the last team mate dies and the enemy stands there and ignores me.  In that case I throw Phantom Army, get the team rezzed and buffed and then kick ass.  What Greycat said is spot on. Most of my time is taken up buffing and neutralizing the big threats. In most cases If I am healing then someone is doing something wrong.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Mitchell

[Doomguide2005]

The idea Empathy's heals break stealth and healing causes aggro both like to crop up from time to time.

 

I leveled 6 Empaths to 50 on Live (and had one of nearly every secondary in progress) and 1 here on HC before my computer went and died.  I've never seen any strong or clear evidence of either being true, though I admit I've never rigorously tested either notion.

 

That said some healing type powers will cause issues but it's because those powers have additional effects, not because of the healing component.  Two that come to mind are Twilights Grasp and Transfusion.  

Edited October 19, 2020 by Doomguide2005

[Healix]

One of my very favorite thing to do is go invis and then fly around, looking for folks in trouble. I heal/buff them till they are ok....I also rez while invis, and I remain unseen. I can attest that healing and buffs don't make you appear. (I also try to run off before they can figure out who kept them alive:)

[Ironblade]

8 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

The idea Empathy's heals break stealth and healing causes aggro both like to crop up from time to time.

It's probably because players from other games are used to healing causing aggro.  In The Secret World, you could tank with a 'heal tank' build.  You would heal yourself to stay alive and the healing would generate enough aggro that the boss would ignore the damage dealers.

[Doomguide2005]

Never played in a game where that was the case, but that is definitely what I see pointed out as the cause for this concern in CoX.

[Scientist]

As a note, while heals may not break stealth, and back on Retail a dev confirmed that while healing could cause aggro in the game engine but they never set in a factor for that, spawns do have a "group AI" that will cause some of them to target anyone on a team, whether or not they are stealthed.  Mob aggro is independent of stealth (just ask stalkers re: ambushes).  In addition to individual mob aggro generated from attacking them, there is spawn aggro where some can come after you even if you have never targeted any enemy or come in view of any of them.  I've got a friend who mained an Emp, so he saw that a lot.  

[oedipus_tex]

You can monitor your Stealth radius attribute to see if stuff is knocking you out of stealth. Most buff or healing powers won't. Enemies will totally ignore you even if you heal teammates as long as you don't hit them with any attacks or debuffs, as long as they can't see you. 

 

Note that attacks from pets count as attacks though.

Edited October 21, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Doomguide2005]

Just going to post this again.  It's in an article currently in the HCwiki lifted from a forum post on Live by Castle.

 

Threat = Damage * Debuff mod * AT mod * AI mod * Range mod * (TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000).  

 

Enemies keep a threat list and will aggro onto the character with the highest threat value on their list.

 

While there are more than a few values in that equation that aren't known or well understood (AI mod and Range mod, in particular) there doesn't appear to be any modifier in the equation for "Buff".  An Empath, or any character, will generate some threat merely by being present and 'detected' by a mob (and this where the unknown AI and Range mods probably explain some of the behavior noted by @Scientist).  What the Floor values these mods have is unknown near as I can tell.

 

A number of Powers also not only provide +stealth but provide negative threat.  The article makes no mention if negative threat stacks.

 

I'm also going to go out on what I suspect is a very sturdy limb and say the AI mod (and several of the other mods) are probably equations of their own simplified for the overall equation and probably include things like ambush modifiers and trigger values for running away when a level 50 obliterates the Hellion in AP (to pick an extreme case).