What is Speed Phase *for* exactly?

[BelleSorciere]

When I'm trapped in a corner I can't use it to pass through the mobs that are locking me in place, or get through a doorway blocked by mobs. This has happened twice on two separate characters. The power description says nothing about intangibility being conditional on not being attacked, just that you can be attacked.

 

It does have some use when at a contact or store to keep passing pedestrians from pushing me away.

 

Is this a bug? Should it be reported as a bug?

Edited February 13 by BelleSorciere

[SuperPlyx]

I have used many times to run through mobs on the way to the end of the mission. Most notable is the Infernal mission with the portal. Run right through them.

You need to still have your stealth in place for it to work .

[BelleSorciere]

I had stealth, unless the stealth provided by superspeed doesn't count. And if that's the case, that makes it worse. Especially given stealth no longer stacks, and the power still doesn't say you need to be stealthed for it to work.

Edited February 13 by BelleSorciere

[ZemX]

17 minutes ago, BelleSorciere said:

When I'm trapped in a corner I can't use it to pass through the mobs that are locking me in place, or get through a doorway blocked by mobs. This has happened twice on two separate characters. The power description says nothing about intangibility being conditional on not being attacked, just that you can be attacked.

 

Yeah, it's not well described in the text but it does happen.  Here's the full data from CoD.

 

If you want a more reliable way to get out of a jam or through a packed doorway, switch to Teleport or Combat Teleport.  Also works great if you are slowed, immobilized, or affected by -jump or -fly keeping you grounded.  Speed Phase, I agree, isn't as useful as it sounds.  For stealthing, which seems to be its only real use, I can't say I've ever really needed that to get to the end of a map anyway.

 

1 minute ago, BelleSorciere said:

I had stealth, unless the stealth provided by superspeed doesn't count. And if that's the case, that makes it worse.

 

Stealth ALSO suppresses when attacked, damaged, when you attack, or when you click on a glowie.  And the stealth from superspeed by itself, even when not suppressed, isn't enough to keep you from being noticed by enemies if you pass right through them.  You'd need to add probably a stealth IO to it and then you'd be invisible to most.  But if you got damaged some other way, like running through a damage field of a CoT red crystal, say, you'd drop out of phase for 4 seconds.

 

It's better than nothing if you were already into the Speed pool for Hasten and didn't want to open another travel pool for Teleport, I guess.  But it's pretty unreliable in practice.

[Ironblade]

5 minutes ago, BelleSorciere said:

I had stealth, unless the stealth provided by superspeed doesn't count. And if that's the case, that makes it worse. Especially given stealth no longer stacks,

Some stealth effects stack and some don't.  For example, Superspeed plus a stealth IO in a sprint power stack just fine and give full invisibility.

 

Annoyingly (to me), Superspeed grants "stealth", which just makes you harder to see and is useless once you get within 15-20 feet of the enemy.  It just reduces their perception range.  Meanwhile, the pool power 'Stealth' grants full invisibility - you can walk right up to the enemy and bump into them and they won't notice you (unless they're a sniper, Rikti drone or someone else with enhanced perception).

 

So, in the situation you described (being right next to the enemy), the stealth from Superspeed does nothing.  All the stealth powers work that way (except the one called 'Stealth', which actually grants full invisibility).

[Ironblade]

2 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Speed Phase, I agree, isn't as useful as it sounds.  For stealthing, which seems to be its only real use, I can't say I've ever really needed that to get to the end of a map anyway.

 

I don't know that I've ever actually used it.  All my characters with Superspeed also have a stealth IO in one of the prestige sprint powers.

[ZemX]

1 minute ago, Ironblade said:

I don't know that I've ever actually used it.  All my characters with Superspeed also have a stealth IO in one of the prestige sprint powers.

 

To be fair, the bonus power in Super Jump is just as lame since you can buy the exact same power (which operates on the same cooldown timer) from the P2W vendor.

[BelleSorciere]

10 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

Yeah, it's not well described in the text but it does happen.  Here's the full data from CoD.

 

If you want a more reliable way to get out of a jam or through a packed doorway, switch to Teleport or Combat Teleport.  Also works great if you are slowed, immobilized, or affected by -jump or -fly keeping you grounded.  Speed Phase, I agree, isn't as useful as it sounds.  For stealthing, which seems to be its only real use, I can't say I've ever really needed that to get to the end of a map anyway.

 

 

Stealth ALSO suppresses when attacked, damaged, when you attack, or when you click on a glowie.  And the stealth from superspeed by itself, even when not suppressed, isn't enough to keep you from being noticed by enemies if you pass right through them.  You'd need to add probably a stealth IO to it and then you'd be invisible to most.  But if you got damaged some other way, like running through a damage field of a CoT red crystal, say, you'd drop out of phase for 4 seconds.

 

It's better than nothing if you were already into the Speed pool for Hasten and didn't want to open another travel pool for Teleport, I guess.  But it's pretty unreliable in practice.

I know how stealth works, I started playing in May 2004 and I was playing when stealth stacking was broken (which appears to have also broken this). My issue is that the power description does not match what the power *does*.

I have teleport mostly via Mystic Flight on multiple characters, but that's beside the point.

 

If this power is meant for nothing but stealthing missions and requires you to have a stealth IO or be a stalker (or in page 7 a VEAT) to actually use it, it seems *extremely* limited in usefulness compared to what most other travel powers provide.

 

It's not that big a deal, I didn't take Super Speed for a bad copy of Phase Shift, it just needs a very explicit description of how it works. 

[ZemX]

17 hours ago, BelleSorciere said:

If this power is meant for nothing but stealthing missions and requires you to have a stealth IO or be a stalker (or in page 7 a VEAT) to actually use it, it seems *extremely* limited in usefulness compared to what most other travel powers provide.

 

It was added only recently and probably not "meant" for more than the novelty of running through people.  Super Speed at least got the jump height thing added to it which is not nearly as useless as the Phase.  And it has a little stealth.

 

But I'd say none of the travel speed powers were really meant to be used in combat.  Some, like the teleports, can be.  But mostly the rest get suppressed to hell and aren't supposed to work at all in combat.

[Vanden]

 

[Glacier Peak]

23 hours ago, BelleSorciere said:

When I'm trapped in a corner I can't use it to pass through the mobs that are locking me in place, or get through a doorway blocked by mobs. This has happened twice on two separate characters. The power description says nothing about intangibility being conditional on not being attacked, just that you can be attacked.

 

It does have some use when at a contact or store to keep passing pedestrians from pushing me away.

 

Is this a bug? Should it be reported as a bug?

It's a free power that's given to players who take Super Speed. There's caveats to its usage as others have pointed out with the CoD info. Not a bug. Here's a note from Jimmy way back when it was being tested out on the beta server. 

 

"Beyond running through civilians and cars just cus, Speed Phase is actually meant to be used to complement Super Speed's stealth component to make ghosting through missions easier."

 

[Ironblade]

On 2/13/2024 at 3:26 PM, BelleSorciere said:

If this power is meant for nothing but stealthing missions and requires you to have a stealth IO or be a stalker (or in page 7 a VEAT) to actually use it, it seems *extremely* limited in usefulness compared to what most other travel powers provide.

 

I think it was supposed to be "extremely limited" since it's a free power.  Believe me, if I had to use a power pick for it, I would never take it.