Concealment Pool Questions

[drgantz]

I'm sure that many people don't understand the Concealment Pool.

 

Which power is best for regular sneaking, such as through a mission?

 

How do improve stealthing?  Is it by using IOs?  Are there other ways?  Which IOs are good?

[Troo]

+1

 

be right back

[Troo]

Travel Power Updates

This update brings a wide range of buffs for travel pools, a brand new travel power (as part of an update to the Concealment pool), and some mechanical improvements to how travel powers work

 

Concealment Pool LINK

• The Concealment pool is now classed as a travel pool, with the first three powers being available immediately at level 4
•  Stealth has had most of the benefits of Invisibility rolled into it
  • Its stealth radius has increased to match Invisibility's old radius
  • Its out-of-combat defense has increased to match Invisibility's old defense values
  • You can choose between the previous transparency levels of Stealth and Invisibility with power customization

•  Infiltration was added as Concealment's tier 3 power (new travel power)
  • If you previously had Invisibility, you will now have Infiltration
  • Infiltration provides a decent increase to run speed, jump speed, jump height and air control
    • These values mirror Ninja Run by default, but with Enhancements you will become significantly faster
  • Infiltration also provides a strong stealth buff and some out-of-combat defense

• Spoiler

  • Concealment has been updated to include a new sneaky & versatile travel power: Infiltration
    • Concealment is now classed as a travel pool - the first 3 powers in the pool are available immediately instead of just the first 2
    • Invisibility and Stealth have been merged together, the best parts of both powers are now available with just Stealth
    • Infiltration now sits where Invisibility used to be in the T3 slot
  •  Stealth
    • Stealth radius increased to match the numbers Invisibility had before this patch
      • PvE radius has increased from 36ft to 55ft
      • PvP radius has increased from 389ft to 611ft
    • Out of combat defense increased from 3.5% to 7%
      • The defense bonuses suppression in this power has been cleaned up, and will now suppress if the user attacks, heals or buffs an ally, commands a pet, is hit by a foe or the user attacks or interacts with a mission objective
      • In-combat defence is unchanged
    • Added a new 'Invisible' customization theme that makes the player barely visible when active
    • Should this power be called Invisibility or Stealth? Have your say here!
  •  Infiltration
    • Replaces Invisibility as Concealment's T3 power
      • If you previously had Invisibility, you will now have Infiltration
    • Grants a run and jump bonus similar to Ninja Run
    • Grants out-of-combat stealth
      • 36ft in PvE, 389ft in PvP (the same values as Stealth before this patch)
    • Grants 1.75% out of combat defense

 

Stealth can also be achieved with adding the Celerity's Stealth proc but may not be necessary if a player has chosen the Concealment pool.

 

[Frostbiter]

Just a word of warning on the Celerity Stealth IO ans Stealth in general. It WILL decrease the distance you can move away from NPC escorts and they will stop and stand still when they lose you. If you have auto stealth you will hate those missions even more.

[Six-Six]

There are several ways to become sneaky:

1) You can slot your travel powers (Speed of Sound, Hover/Flight, Combat Jumping/Super Jump, Mighty Leap, Mystic Flight, Combat Teleport) with any of the +Stealth IOs for the respective power. You can even slot Celerity +Stealth in Sprint if you don't have a travel power. This will give you a decent amount of sneakiness to run past enemies. But don't get too close because they will still notice you.

2) You can take Concealment Invisibility/Infiltration. You can't (and don't need to) slot stealth into these because you will already be getting Stalker-level stealth. You can stand in between two enemies arguing and they won't notice you.

3) Some primaries/secondaries have stealth baked into them. All Stalkers have a mandatory first secondary power Hide. Blaster /Devices has Field Operative, Storm Summoning has Steamy Mist, melee's Energy Aura has Energy Cloak, etc. These powers have varying degrees of stealth. And while you also can't stealth IOs into them, you can supplement your sneakiness with stealth IOs and follow the first procedure I mentioned.

I usually take a travel power but don't slot stealth into it. Instead, I slot a single Celerity +Stealth in Power Slide. I do this so that I have the option to turn stealth on or off especially with Lead X out missions -- where I need sprint but have to be visible. I can turn on Power Slide when I'm Jumping or Flying I don't mind the end cost when I'm just getting to a door mission. (also it adds a chem trail to my movement). I turn off travel powers when I fight... except for Combat Jumping or Hover. IIRC, Speed of Sound and the running power from Hasten -- sorry, I rarely take those -- gives you a bit of stealth out of the box. That or you're too fast for the buggers to react.

[Mezmera]

The best stealth to not be seen on the Hard Mode content you will want to go with Super Speed, Stealth and a Celerity Stealth IO to not be seen with the higher perception enemies have.  For the most part I got by with Stealth and the IO until this harder content.  If you want to achieve high invisibility you will want Stealth, plus 1/3 of its defense stays active in a fight whereas Infiltration has lower stealth and you lose all defense in a fight.   

[Zhym]

1 hour ago, Frostbiter said:

Just a word of warning on the Celerity Stealth IO ans Stealth in general. It WILL decrease the distance you can move away from NPC escorts and they will stop and stand still when they lose you. If you have auto stealth you will hate those missions even more.

I usually slot it in Sprint for that reason (or did, when the Celerity Stealth IO was needed for "full stealthiness").  Most NPC escorts are so slow that I have to turn off Sprint anyway or they won't keep up with me.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Zhym

[Six-Six]

@Zhym Ya, that's always a hassle. However, I've noticed that the AI "leashing" has improved somewhat. With just an attuned Celerity End Redux + Run slotted in Sprint (no other powers that boost run speed), the hostages/kidnap escortees seem to be able to keep up until the end of the hall, a little less in twisty caves. I usually stop every 4 seconds and wait for them to "almost" catch up before I run again. Corners and stairs are particular areas of hand-holding. But ya, overall, it's not as frustrating anymore... Some NPCs more than others, though.
 
@drgantz A different way I get past mobs without drawing aggro and without any form of stealth is TP, either combat tp or Mystic Flight's Translocation. I just tp past the mob beyond their perception range. However, this takes more planning and still sometimes I can't see past corners and get surprised when I end up TPing right on top of another mob haha.

[Ironblade]

4 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

Just a word of warning on the Celerity Stealth IO ans Stealth in general. It WILL decrease the distance you can move away from NPC escorts and they will stop and stand still when they lose you. If you have auto stealth you will hate those missions even more.

 

2 hours ago, Zhym said:

I usually slot it in Sprint for that reason (or did, when the Celerity Stealth IO was needed for "full stealthiness").  Most NPC escorts are so slow that I have to turn off Sprint anyway or they won't keep up with me.

 

Yep.  I actually do it slightly differently.  I get the prestige sprints and put the stealth IO in one of those for two reasons:

1)  There's a visible aura around me to remind me I'm stealthed.

2)  I can use sprint without being stealthed.

 

Regarding the Concealment Pool, here's one important thing - these powers take defense buff IO's.  On non-defense armor characters where I need the recharge, I'll get two or three of the concealment powers to mule Luck of the Gambler +recharge.  On characters where I'm on the fence about taking a concealment power, being able to drop that LotG in there is often the deciding factor.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Ironblade

[Zhym]

2 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Regarding the Concealment Pool, here's one important thing - these powers take defense buff IO's.  On non-defense armor characters where I need the recharge, I'll get two or three of the concealment powers to mule Luck of the Gambler +recharge.  On characters where I'm on the fence about taking a concealment power, being able to drop that LotG in there is often the deciding factor.

Oh, yes.  I have a character with Stealth and Infiltration, which seems redundant (and is), but Infiltration as an LOTG mule doesn't seem like a wasted power.

[Riverdusk]

Basically stealth is your in combat stealth (as it keeps some of its defense in combat), and infiltration is a stand in for a travel power (with slotting/bonuses I can get my running/jumping speed to around 80mph with infiltration, so it can keep up with other travel powers pretty well).  The bonus to infiltration being it is the only decently fast travel power you can get that can also slot a LoTG as a free bonus.

 

Stealth by itself gives 55ft of stealth in pve which is enough all on its own (against most mobs) for you to be able to walk right up to them and not be seen.

 

Infiltration gives 36 feet of stealth which means you'll need another stacking source of stealth to achieve "invisibility" to most mobs.  A celerity +stealth IO or one of the similar ones will do the trick.

 

Note: Stealth and infiltration can NOT be run at the same time.

[Doomguide2005]

Basically you take the foes perception and subtract your stealth.  That is the distance at which they will see you.  At 0 or less you can make funny faces while nose to nose and they won't see you.

Minions          45ft

Lts.                  50ft

Boss, EB, AV  54ft

   Full listing in the HCwiki article Stealth and Perception.  There are some foes which ignore Stealth.  Snipers have a Perception of 149ft i.e. unless you're a Stalker in Hidden status or Illusionist using Superior Invisibility its very difficult if not impossible to stack enough stealth to approach closely without being seen (149 - current stealth).

 

PS:  Superior Invisibility is the single highest stealth in a single power or ability at 200ft.  Hidden/Hide is 150ft.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Doomguide2005
Afterthoughts

[Black Talon]

While I certainly won't claim to have any insight on the pure numbers aspect - what percentage is a foe's to-hit diminished when using a Concealment power, what distance can they "see" you, and so forth, I will state that Mezmera's opinion is one I share entirely.  While various "tweaking" over the years may have diminished its effectiveness - at least pre-Shutdown - and I have no idea whether or not that's true, I have always found that Stealth and Super-Speed, combined, is effectively equivalent to Invisibility.  While the concealment and travel power are both on, I've been able to stand nose-to-nose with bosses and never so much as disturbed a hair.  With this, the alt takes on a very effective form of the classical ninja: able to run through the place, unseen, and reconnoiter without disturbance.  This is no matter whether one's simply scouting out territory, or finding the best way to back-stab/alpha-strike Arachnos Elite-Boss X.  This, at least, has been the text of my past and current experience, and I suspect will remain so, until if and when the HC Devs decide to perform another surgical nerfing.

 

As a final point, I agree entirely as well with Troo's summation of the Stealth/Infiltration differences; Stealth is by far the more dependable of the two, and there are pretty much uncounted points when a villain happened to pick up on one of My Boys sneaking around when using Infiltration, and promptly ruined whatever effort I'd made to move around without disturbance.  Infiltration does have the pseudo-travel power advantages, but I'd still far prefer to get around without any real risk of discovery (at least when not using the Stealth/Super-Speed combo), and allow the group tacticians to start planning gang assaults.

 

Stealth remains the number one Concealment pick, and I wish you all best when fulfilling this particular alt.

[Doomguide2005]

Yes.

Numbers wise this is born out.

Super Speed.   35ft

Stealth IO.         30ft

That's 65ft

 

Almost everything you encounter outside of Snipers, those that ignore stealth and the occasional Turret is at best 54ft.

 

54ft - 65ft is safely less than zero.  They will not see you at all.

 

New Hard Mode boosted perception is 66ft

 

They'll see you at 66ft - 65ft 

At 1ft they'll see you.  So shy of rubbing noses still pretty good to go.  The problem comes around with their increased use of some version of Tactics.  Frankly don't know what value, if any, it boosts their perception.  But that would be where a Power Analyzer might clue you into the gritty details.  That and most stealth (but not all) becomes suppressed when you're hit or interact with an object/glowie or you attack.  66ft perception makes it easier for the next mob over to see you when you engage the first.

[Riverdusk]

My illusion/TA controller is my ultimate stealther, even more than my stalkers funnily.  Between SI not suppressing on attack and flash arrow to help safely click glowies. 

Whereas stalkers hide does suppress fully on attack, always thought it'd be nice if it only partially did since that is their whole thing.

[Doomguide2005]

7 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

My illusion/TA controller is my ultimate stealther, even more than my stalkers funnily.  Between SI not suppressing on attack and flash arrow to help safely click glowies. 

Whereas stalkers hide does suppress fully on attack, always thought it'd be nice if it only partially did since that is their whole thing.

     Frankly it's even better than that.  Flash Arrow totally blinds the foes.  Even Snipers are totally blind, perception reduced to zero.  In turn that means Ill/TA can blind all their targets allowing even an ally with zero stealth to move about freely in close proximity including vs foes that otherwise ignore stealth.  I'd still be wary around Hard Mode Tactics.  While FAs perception debuff is flagged to ignore resistance Tactics itself is a huge buff to perception and may simply leave a positive value especially if they stack it (or it buffs a Sniper).