Shade stealth drop-off suggestion

I doubt threat for normal mobs is a big thing so perhaps it’s easier to code in that the stealth drops off after 1 - 0.5 seconds after hitting your attack so the player doesn’t have to deal with the occasional 0.01 second aggro flip where EVERYTHING turns around and decides to whack you out.

That said this is just a suggestion, please discuss your experience with this.

I haven’t had too much issue with it since I mind my positioning but a lot of shades in my groups especially suffer from it. From my own experience it can have devastating issues with stormvermin and bosses at times in particular and this would improve response times a bit I feel!

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I have found immediately blocking and dodging in whichever direction is best to work effectively to counter act this. Also why I build to one shot anything without the need of power from grim or backstab in order to be positioned more safely. Only annoying ones are shield vermin for obvious reasons.

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You see, I wholeheartedly agree with that and play by that same style myself. But I can’t help but feel that it’s more playing around a disruptive gameplay element efficiently rather than a skill working well within the game. It can sometimes, even when blocking and dodging, cause a jarring moment when you hit something and you immediately after the hit even impacts the mob have to start kiting a pack of elites or horde.

They don’t even seem surprised you popped out of nowhere, you’ll immediately have a sword coming for your head. (Which is fine if you anticipate this!)

For experienced players like us this isn’t so much an issue since we can play around these things, but in terms of balancing/smoothness I feel a bit of reaction-time wouldn’t be a bad thing and wouldn’t even so much be a nerf or buff as much as a clarity fix since AI will generally always react quicker than players.

That and I’m tired of picking up elves XD.

I would certainly find that to be a nice tweak to the active. My only concern would be if it allows you to get more than a single hit in with the enhanced damage, as that would make it overpowered. Ideally, you would make it so the damage buff is exhausted after your first strike. I don’t know how difficult it would be to add untargetability(like Hand Maiden’s active at 25) for a short duration afterwards.

Acting defensively and being aware of what situation you will be in when you strike from infiltrate is important. Doing the things you mentioned are ideal and I also rarely have issues after leaving stealth because of what you mentioned and what I mentioned.

Politely educating the players that get slammed from being poor users of it is probably the best thing to do. Although, people will probably get defensive and tell you not to tell them how to play. At least you tried, I suppose?

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Not the intention at all, no! This is meant to be for the stealth only, not the damage buff. It’s meant as nothing more than a bit more immersion in not eating steel in the same milisecond you strike a mob with your active!

To add, you getting aggro for dealing a ton of damage makes sense, but you should have time to react at a human pace xD.

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As it is, Infiltrate is already a very powerful tool, and as others said, being prepared for the inevitable aggro is a matter of skill and positioning (once again). Letting the invisibility stay for a moment or making the enemies surprised might make it a bit too safe to use for its utility and power.

This did come to my mind too a few days ago, though, and I thought adding a second or two of stealth after the initial attack (without any damage bonuses anymore) might be a good Talent, probably to replace or add to the “longer duration” Lv25 one. This would actually make that Talent worth picking, as unless you’re really bad at positioning yourself, the duration increase by itself is useless. The stealth will break as soon as you (successfully) attack anyway. It would also be a choice between safety, using Infiltrate 30% more often or easy ranged damage.

That’d be too long though, it’s not about making it more safe etc but mobs turn on a dime currently and as I said while experienced players can avoid a bad situation 95% of the time you’re still going to run into awkward sudden aggro swaps at times.

I’ve had cases where I killed a pair of stormvermin and had a third suddenly decide to switch over to me mid swing while they were attacking someone else previously, this type of stuff is what I’m talking about - enemies won’t finish their animations but will instantly swap to the player.

1-2 seconds would be far too long and isn’t my suggestion as it’d be far too powerful as wel but it feels like the stealth component itself is still rather shoddy. Damage aside. Pair this with the unreliability of stealth (enemies tracking, still hitting you, bosses still chasing you upwards to half the stealth duration before finally swapping) and just the stealth itself feels strangely implemented.