Stealth

[Samyrmancer]

What do the various stealth abilities do for us?

 

Hide makes us invisible (not just stealthed), use AS and autocrit? I've definitely gone places with hide that I could not have gone stealthed, so I think it is closer to invis.

What about power pool Stealth?

Invisibility?

Stealth mvmt enhancements?

What about something from another player, like smoke?

 

Also, please, what are the limitations on what can autocrit? Can any of our attacks do it? What about ranged attacks? Or power pool attacks?

 

Thanks in advance!

[StrikerFox]

Different power gives varying degrees of stealth. The more you have, the harder it is to detect you. That's why a lot of Stalkers in pvp will run Hide + Stealth + Celerity Stealth IO. They stack making them more difficult to see.

 

Stealth is countered by Perception. Powers like Tactics, Targeting Drone, Focused Accuracy, Rectified Reticle IO etc provides this. The more perception a player/enemy has, the better chance they will see the stealthed foe. https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Stealth_and_Perception

 

AFAIK, Only attacks from a Stalker's primary and secondary can crit. Melee and ranged attacks. I think AoE crit chance is less but someone else can probably confirm/give more precise info.

[Samyrmancer]

Thank you, this is very helpful. So, people are running stealth to make their hide even more invis-like. is that really an issue PvE or is it mostly for PvP? I sure could use the pool skill. 

[Lockpick]

5 hours ago, Samyrmancer said:

Thank you, this is very helpful. So, people are running stealth to make their hide even more invis-like. is that really an issue PvE or is it mostly for PvP? I sure could use the pool skill. 

In PVE there are some enemies with decent perception that can see through Stealth, but I don't know any will see through Hide.  With a stealth IO and SS you are practically invisible the vast majority of enemies will not see through it.   The link StrikerFox provided gives great details on stealth and perception.

[Hjarki]

On 8/14/2019 at 1:12 AM, StrikerFox said:

AFAIK, Only attacks from a Stalker's primary and secondary can crit. Melee and ranged attacks. I think AoE crit chance is less but someone else can probably confirm/give more precise info.

Pool (and patron/epic) powers can crit as well.

 

[Justisaur]

Pseudo-pets can't crit though, so that means no crits on electric's lightning rod, the jumps on chain induction, shield's shield charge, or leaping's spring attack (possibly others.)  However none of those will break stealth since technically it's the pseudo-pet's attack, but they will alert enemies and they'll start attacking you which will break stealth if they hit.

[StrikerFox]

If I remember right, Stealth + Celerity unique was enough invisibility so that no enemies could detect you in pve. Except for a few that auto-detects, like Rikti Drones and Lam/BAF turrets.

[Xingularity]

I pretty consistently get seen through hide by the Knives? I think it is in Dark Astoria and some of them are in the portal missions I'm doing as well and they see me. They are the only ones who have seen me and I run all over the place.

[Mister Mass]

1 hour ago, StrikerFox said:

If I remember right, Stealth + Celerity unique was enough invisibility so that no enemies could detect you in pve. Except for a few that auto-detects, like Rikti Drones and Lam/BAF turrets.

Stealth (the Pool power) + any of the Stealth IOs grants a total of 65 feet of Stealth - which is 10 feet more than Invisibility grants.  So that combo will provide effective invisibility to any enemy that couldn't see through Invisibility.

[Trademarked Name]

On 8/15/2019 at 5:12 PM, Xingularity said:

I pretty consistently get seen through hide by the Knives? I think it is in Dark Astoria and some of them are in the portal missions I'm doing as well and they see me. They are the only ones who have seen me and I run all over the place.

According to the wiki, the Knives are described as using tactical goggles (it describes them as 'night vision' but due to the red appearance they imply infrared), thus Stealth/Invisibility/Hide have no affect on them. 

 

----------------

Compared to other "stealth" powers, Hide is a beast.

I tried running a controller with "Superior Invisibility", but it should be called "Inferior Invisibility" IMO. You don't get to take it until level 8. It's only available to Controllers with Illusion power set. And the minute you interact with anything it turns off and you're out in the open for every enemy to see (just like every other stealth power, mind you). If you wanted to be accurate Superior Invisibility should be renamed "Take this Power if you don't want to get Sniped when flying through Founders Falls or be seen by GMs, because those are the only two things this power is good for". <-though that could be the longest name for a power in the game.

 

The power pool Concealment power called Invisibility requires you to take another concealment power first: Either Stealth (which you can pretty much remove from your power try when you have Invisibility as they are redundant), or Grant Invis. which rarely is ever called for in game (NEVER if you solo mishes). Invisibility is only 55' perception reduction and you can't use any offensive powers with it on, as unlike other Steatlh powers it doesn't auto toggle off and on when you're attacked. Pro tip: make sure you turn off Invisibility before you run into a mob thinking you're going to unleash hellfire, because you'll just be mashing attack buttons and your toon will just stand there not doing anything as if they have After Burner turned on.

 

Hide grants 150' perception reduction. I notice that you don't actually get 150' until you're around level 16 to 18, until then it slowly escalates each level you obtain from around 80' at the low levels. Even then, not only is Hide better than Stealth AND Invisibility for level of perception negation, it is a power you get at level 1 as a Stalker. Level 1!!! Most 1st level powers are dump powers, mules, or remove from power tray before you reach level 40 in most ATs. 

 

Stacking Celerity or Unbounded Leap with Hide can be beneficial at low levels where you haven't gotten the full boost, but are simply unnecessary at levels above 18.  If 65' is "imperceptible" to conservatively 95% of enemies. 100' makes you ignored by Giant Monsters. And 150'  (level 18 Hide) for Snipers, then you've pretty much capped it with the singular Hide power toggled on. Aside from those that ignore Stealth powers completely, I don't think anything has anything over 150' perception. (so the -200' perception of Superior Stealth is once again, pretty pointless/infererior!). Stacking stealth IOs on top of Invisibility still falls short of the -100' percept. reduction to get past GMs. And flying through Founder's Falls streets, you WILL still get sniped with this stack (They will still spot you at 65 feet which about the length of the side of a building). Flying down the narrow streets you are probably 10 yards from the rooftops, and will be zinged by a sniper or two or three unless you are skimming the ground at street level like a speedster. 

 

If you get the Stalker' Guile Proc that can pop and hide you immediately after you fire-off that attack, it's about as close to true invisibility that you can get in the game. And that Proc is slottable at level 7! Expensive for a low level character to invest in, but if you have philanthropic level 50 alts payrolling, it's a no-brainer for one of the first IOs to get!

 

In short: If they don't just rethink the system completely, they should rename Stealth as "Concealed" or "Obscured", the power Invisibility should be called "Stealth" or "Hide" (with a note in the power description stating that if you're taking this power you're wasting you're power pick AND possibly a slot from another power to make it less than pointless) and finally what we call Hide should be renamed "Invisibility" or "Imperceptibility" or "Death from the Shadows" or "Omniscient Observation" some such. 

Just my 2 cents.

 

P.S. Someone posited the other day if we could do a Hamidon Raid where we get like 70-80 Stalkers to just Hide past the mitos and Assassin's strike the Hami to death with no tankers. I'm not sure it's possible or even feasible to get 80 level 45+ stalkers together, but it gave me pause to think about how neat that would be to do just 1 time. 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Rocketeur

[Zep]

On 8/15/2019 at 6:53 AM, Lockpick said:

In PVE there are some enemies with decent perception that can see through Stealth, but I don't know any will see through Hide.  With a stealth IO and SS you are practically invisible the vast majority of enemies will not see through it.   The link StrikerFox provided gives great details on stealth and perception.

There are a few units - like Rickti Probes, that can see my Stalker when close.

[Mister Mass]

On 8/28/2019 at 5:34 PM, Zep said:

There are a few units - like Rickti Probes, that can see my Stalker when close.

Rikti Drones, Rularuu Sentries, & Knives of Artemis ignore all stealth, including Hide.  Stacking more sources of stealth doesn't help - as they just ignore all sources completely.

[Frostweaver]

No. stalker hide + a stealth IO allows you to pass rikti drones. Rularuu eyeballs and knives, however, can still see through it.

[Mister Mass]

On 8/30/2019 at 11:20 PM, Frostweaver said:

No. stalker hide + a stealth IO allows you to pass rikti drones. Rularuu eyeballs and knives, however, can still see through it.

Okay, I'll take your word for that.  The information in my post above was from the wiki, so it may be wrong. 

 

But I don't see how stacking additional sources of stealth can help a Stalker in Hide.  My /Ninjitsu stalker is always at the stealth cap when in Hide.  I can see this by tracking my stealth radius using the ingame numbers.  Adding an additional source of stealth would only overstack my stalker, it wouldn't increase his stealth radius beyond the hard cap.  Going beyond a hard cap in the game can have value by providing buffer space against debuffs, but I don't think anything debuffs stealth.  I'm ready to be educated on this, but until someone presents evidence that either Hide doesn't put a stalker at the stealth cap, or else that some enemies debuff stealth radius, I don't see how adding an additional source of stealth can benefit a stalker in Hide.

[Frostweaver]

I don't really understand how or why it works, but when using a stealth IO in combat jumping, I was able to sidle right by rikti drones... although I will admit I didn't try doing jumping jacks on top of them or anything, they let me go by in the mender Incarnate mission without shooting at me.
I remembered knives and rularuu eyeballs specifically because they still seemed to see right through it, irritatingly so.

What was really odd is that there was one mission...I do not remember which one, where Malta and Knives were mixed up. When I would get within spitting distance of a knives, one guy would summon a turret, which would ignore me, while the sapper did not attack until the knife became 'fully aware' and launched her own attack.

It might be a function of aggro reduction radius rather than stealth radius.

[Mister Mass]

On 9/3/2019 at 11:18 AM, Mister Mass said:

Okay, I'll take your word for that.  The information in my post above was from the wiki, so it may be wrong. 

 

But I don't see how stacking additional sources of stealth can help a Stalker in Hide.  My /Ninjitsu stalker is always at the stealth cap when in Hide.  I can see this by tracking my stealth radius using the ingame numbers.  Adding an additional source of stealth would only overstack my stalker, it wouldn't increase his stealth radius beyond the hard cap.  Going beyond a hard cap in the game can have value by providing buffer space against debuffs, but I don't think anything debuffs stealth.  I'm ready to be educated on this, but until someone presents evidence that either Hide doesn't put a stalker at the stealth cap, or else that some enemies debuff stealth radius, I don't see how adding an additional source of stealth can benefit a stalker in Hide.

Okay, I was wrong.  My stalker in Hide is not always at the Stealth cap.  Slotting a Stealth IO increases the stealth radius on the character.  Live & learn! 😉

Edited September 8, 2019 by Mister Mass

[StrikerFox]

Rikti Drones seem to detect my Stalker with Hide + Stealth + Stealth IO active.

 

 

[Frostweaver]

perhaps it was a fluke.

[Razia]

On 8/22/2019 at 5:59 PM, Rocketeur said:

According to the wiki, the Knives are described as using tactical goggles (it describes them as 'night vision' but due to the red appearance they imply infrared), thus Stealth/Invisibility/Hide have no affect on them. 

 

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Compared to other "stealth" powers, Hide is a beast.

I tried running a controller with "Superior Invisibility", but it should be called "Inferior Invisibility" IMO. You don't get to take it until level 8. It's only available to Controllers with Illusion power set. And the minute you interact with anything it turns off and you're out in the open for every enemy to see (just like every other stealth power, mind you). If you wanted to be accurate Superior Invisibility should be renamed "Take this Power if you don't want to get Sniped when flying through Founders Falls or be seen by GMs, because those are the only two things this power is good for". <-though that could be the longest name for a power in the game.

 

 

Wow, as you can see in my sig I play a lvl 50 Stalker and a lvl 50 Illusionist. And you have clearly no idea what you are talking about regarding Superior Invis. It's Stealth capped at 200 ft, that's the cap for all stealth powers. You can literally attack a mob in a spawn and the others in the same spawn won't notice you. A Stalker can't get to the cap with hide alone. So not sure where you get that that hide compared to other stealth powers is a beast thing? Not that I would even compare those two because for a stalker hide serves totally another purpose than sup invis for a Illusionist.

[Trademarked Name]

Yes, but what creature in game has more than 150 feet of perception? 
Hide hits -150 feet at level 18. GMs and Turrets have perception to 100. Snipers are 149 feet. So....what additional things are you invisible to with the extra 50 feet that Superior Invis. gives?

And maybe I wasn't "playing" Superior invisibility right as I abandoned the character when it hit the teens. But with Superior Invisibility on, if I interacted with a glowie, all minions around me attacked like I had unleashed an AOE. So, are you saying that was a bug? That you don't become visible when you click on a glowie with Sup Invis? because I apologize if I'm wrong. I think the only other things I was using were "Sprint" and I don't think that aggros. Should I have reported that to the GMs? 
If you're telling me that Superior Invis does let you click on glowies unfettered, AND it keeps you invisible to all around you except the mob you are attacking even if you're within perception range, I'll roll that character again in a heart beat. because that's awesome! That wasn't my experience though.

So, I will admit I probably don't know what I'm talking about. I haven't played either of those ATs extensively, but I have been playing a Stalker for a few weeks and it's a pretty AWESOME power to get at level 1 (even though it's not fully powered until the late teens). 

 

[Razia]

I didn't say you need that 50 additional feet, just saying that Hide is not superior to Superior Invis like you stated. Of Course you become visible if you click on a glowie, that's the same with ALL the Stealth powers. You make it in a click glowie argument, when clearly it was about you saying that hide is better than superior invis. If you don't believe me, get ingame, open Combat Attributes and compare the Stealth values in feet between hide and superior invis.

 

Plus if those additional x feet of stealth aren't necessary (which I agree) so why slot another stealth IO or take an additional Stealth power on a Stalker?

[Frostweaver]

all clickies drop stealth powers. Even stalker hide.

The difference is, stalkers usually have the defense to not get interrupted while the glowie cycles.

Superior invis IS fairly powerful, it's like a much more end-intensive form of stalker hide (end intensive like hotfeet. jeesh. seriously over-end compared to a hide io in sprint and concealment) and USED to be the only 'real' invisibility in the game that didn't disable your powers, until IO sets and CoV came along.

And discovered, it still gives you like 5 points of enhanced defense. compared to 4 points for stalker hide. (That is AT bonuses, though) and 4 points discovered concealment. This is the only defense you get from a controller primary, although some give various flavors of -to-hit. It may not seem like a whole lot, but unless you have defense in your secondary, this can go a VERY long way towards cranking up your defense to softcaps.

And yes, you can pluck one out of a spawn with relative impunity. With Range attacks. If you are not within melee aggro range, the rest of the spawn (unless they have enhanced perception) will quite literally ignore it (usually) as long as you pull them far enough away that your presence, discovered, does not aggro them.

I used to PvP with an illusion controller, (before at proliferation) and that 50 feet DOES make a difference... especially when you are hunting stalkers.

[Shoulung]

I have noticed that smoke in combination with/dev stealth on my blaster allowed me to click on the bombs in the Posi 2 TF without being detected.

[Frostweaver]

well, if enemies are smoked your clicking out of cloak, unless you are literally nose-to-nose with them, will keep them from detecting you. The cloak+smoke, of course, will let you pass too close to the group without being detected, but if you walked through the middle of them right after you click the glowie but before you were re-hidden, you would likely be detected.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Frostweaver

[Trademarked Name]

I did say "In my opinion" in the original post. My points were: 

1) Hide you get at level 1. Superior you get at level 8 and only available to 1 power set.

2) Hide w/stalker's strike can IMMEDIATELY re-hide you.

3) Hide makes you "stealthy" to just as many factions as superior invisibility does. In fact Superior Invisibility doesn't add any additional factions with it's stated extra 50 feet. 

4) Neither of them allows you to avert aggroing nearby enemies if you click on a glowie. So they act the same for engagement.

 

I didn't mention PVP, because I don't PVP (most don't) and I don't have an objective opinion on it. but Superior does give invis to 1000 ft. to other players compared to 500 for Hide. So, if you are into gacking other players before they see you...Yes. I can see for 1 purpose Superior is truly superior.

I apologize for having posting an opinion and for not knowing what I'm talking about.