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Stillwaters
05-09-2011, 03:56 PM
- a compilation of stealth relevant info-

Killing 90-100% of mobs in quest = conquest +15%xp
Killing 0-5% mobs and using little resources = +10%xp (plus bragging rights)

Pulling mobs (in order of effectiveness):
Bluff pulling Requires the skill BLUFF - Sneak up till in range target your mob and hit bluff and back up. Perfect for one target at a time.
Invis pulling Requires the skills MOVE SILENT possibly HIDE and the spell/clicky INVISIBILITY - You sneak with invis on, you go out of sneak at the point (hiding thanks to invis but not silent due not sneaking) where you want the mobs to go. Then you take one quick small step out of sneak (but still invis) and then go back to stealth and move away. The mobs will go to the point where you took the step.
Sneak pulling (no invis) Requires the skills HIDE/MOVE SILENT - Remove/swap out your move silently item take a step or two so the enemy hears you, then put item back on and stealth away. If you happen to own an item that LOWERS your move silent score (chattering ring etc) then equip it move then unequip it again.
Ranged pulling Requires a ranged weapon - You stay out of earshot AND line-of-sight and attack a spot on the floor/wall near the mob to make him investigate
Trap pulling Requires lvl 4 rogue (trapmaking feat) - Noise maker traps: place and walk away, for patrolling mobs you may also use aggressive traps.
Assassinate pulling Requires lvl12 rogue assassin - You can smash breakables using assassinate without breaking stealth to create a noise.
Mark of Finding pulling Requires Feat : least dragonmark of finding- You can smash breakables with a small range using the mark without breaking stealth to create a noise. (also as a minor benefit you get some junk to use in quest (pray for invis wands) :)


Noise and line-of-sight:
They can hear through walls. But yes, you can use terrain and other things to block line of sight.
It is also important to note that monsters cannot see behind themselves. (well..except beholders ) Nor to the sides. it is possible to stand up right next to a monster while SILENT (or don't move) and he will not know you are there. Monsters in some position other then their normal standing one, are for all intents sleeping, and will not see you, if you do not make noise. I've also noticed that as long as you are stealthed and BEHIND the door guard, the fact that the door (chest, lever, etc) has opened does not alert them to your presence.

Stealthing:
You need to be out of earshot AND line of sight, remember some doors (and even some walls) are considered see-thru in DDO both may be heard thru. Get items that boost your hide/move silent scores some spells shore up a small hide score but you need a great move silent. Eyes show how obvious you are (if a mob is looking your way) red footprints show that the enemy can HEAR you and will trace(ping) you from then on(this will only show up at close range but they can hear you from much farther away).
Jump/glide Speedy Stealthing: You cannot jump while stealthed, but you can jump THEN hit sneak while falling before hitting the floor and you will not make a noise to attract enemies nearby (works best under invisibility). This has no speed reduction in mid-air
Swim Speedy Stealthing: You cannot stealth once in water, but you can jump THEN hit sneak while falling before hitting the water and you will again be a water ninja. This has no speed reduction when in the water
Ladder Speedy Stealthing: You cannot stealth once climbing, but you can jump THEN hit sneak while aiming for the ladder and you will again be stealthed for the exit off the ladder-top. There is no speed reduction whilst on the ladder .


Stealth breakers:
The following WILL break your sneak and most times also kills an invisibility spell:
Pulling levers
Using runes
Opening chests
Casting
Firing a ranged weapon(even into space)
Hitting a mob (not just attacking)with a melee weapon
Getting hit
Tumbling - (and this is stupid on so many levels but still)

Blindsight:
Bats/spiders/undead/Tharashk hounds/Slimes(insert more here) These mobs CANNOT BE STEALTHED PAST they need no spot check and will follow you for quite some time.

Bumped/aggro'd mobs:
The only way they can ping you while you are both invisible and sneaking is if you bumped into one at some point, unless...your move silently just isn't high enough...and if that is the case, you wont see sound flashes to alert you, that only happens when you are close enough. Ok, so now i've bumped a guard or primary target out of the pack. Without the use of spells, can i kite him all over the dungeon using only stealth tactics? YES (see re-stealthing)!!!
He will be constantly trying to find and attack you. And may knock you out of stealth while doing so (if he damages you). He will also be telling every monster he gets near that he is attacking someone and they will move toward him trying to see for themselves what is going on. (interesting note that ENEMY Flaming Spheres from the spell will chase you around while you sneak past monsters and tell other monsters that they are attacking you....you'll see the monsters following the sphere around trying to see what it is attacking.)

RE-Stealthing:
To get back into sneak mode and be hiding and moving silently. This is seen to be the hardest thing to do because people are misinformed on how its done. It's actually quite easy to lose monsters that have already seen you.
The ONLY way this works, is to move far enough to lose them from your target window (hard-target a mob and move away till it is no longer in your reticle) obviously be out of line of sight and out of the area (just behind a nearby corner or doorway will NOT work) pop invisibility(if you can) then stealth.

EPIC WINNING MAGIC:
Invisibility Invisibility as implemented in DDO gives enemies without see invis or true seeing a -20 penalty to their spot checks against you and CONSIDERS YOU ALWAYS HIDING. It is ESSENTIAL if you aggro mobs and need to vacate, the mob will continue to be aggro and search for you but wont automatically know where to move to. scrolls/wands for those with umd, pots and clickys for those that cannot cast.

Expeditious retreat/Haste/Shadowwalk - Sneaking is SLOW, so boost up that speed anyway you can! Shadowwalk+invisibility is a great high lvl stealth tool

Death aura - Breaks stealth! Every time it ticks counts as an offensive spell being cast. You don't want to have that spell active while trying to sneak, as you wont be taking any damage anyways. Negative energy burst if you take trap damage, then back into sneak.

Flaming sphere - IS an awesome low lvl distraction/damage spell but is commonly overlooked. This can be used from scroll as it isn't affected by metas/extend etc. It not only draws mobs to it without breaking your stealth and cooks them but unlike a summoned creature cannot be damaged and has a very short duration (so will not follow you around the whole quest when you may want mobs to stay still).

Hypnotise - No longer viable now with such short duration. Hypno'd mobs CAN STILL SEE AND HEAR YOU, if they saw you cast it they WILL chase you down later. Fascinate however is still EPIC WIN!!!

Charm spells - This will aggro mobs like a distraction spell but not toward you, and has the added benefit of being able to be dismissed whenever the time is right. DISMISSING THE CHARM When dismissing a Charm, it is worth noting that if you stand behind the critter, it won't aggro. Higher lvls of charm allow you to move the mob a fair way, then you can even go into sneak mode, dismiss the charm, then sneak off if you are aiming for no kills.

D.O.T - Wall of Fail, Melfs Acid arrow, Clouds, Rains. - Focus your enhancements on acid early on, then respec them later for fire/lightning etc if you feel. It's worth it! Melf's arrow spell with maximize and extend can take out almost any low level boss in one shot. Works especially well in redwillow. Sneak up to a named troll, hit him with acid, run for the nearest cave or re-stealth with invis, wait for him to die, grab the quest object and move on.

Dimension Door - For those times when the group fails and you really need to re-stealth and try again. If you are far enough away the mobs will stop looking for you.

Grease - I know.. I know, alright!! But when retreating in a room full of mobs placing this right can slow/stop the aggro'd mobs and give you time to make the distance needed for getting hidden again (see res-tealthing above)

Jump / Featherfall - GLIDING - As mentioned above you cannot jump while stealthed- you can however use the jump n stealth combo to get further or onto ledges you couldnt normally reach, feather falling increases this range quite a bit and allows seemingly unreachable places to be reached.

Spells that don't aggro mobs -
BLINDNESS, (insert more here as we test em)

Thank you to all those who i have plagiarized above - just thought this should be in one place - when i wake up ill try add your names for the credits.

Stillwaters
05-09-2011, 03:57 PM
reserved for thanks/credits deserved. If anyone has any more great tactics please drop it in thread and ill add it to the main post and you to the credits

A TON of credit should firstly go to
Ghoste the master and pioneer of shadowtactics. His shadowmage philosophy threads are PACKED full of useful tips

Delsoboss For 1st on Assassinate pulling, 1st on the the "speedy" stealthing section

Jollyswagman For 1st on Charm/Dismiss charm tactics, 1st on Featherfall/Jump gliding tactics

Stillwaters
05-09-2011, 04:00 PM
Motivation:

Remember to search for ghoste and +1 rep him for these (not that he needs it) :)

His videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/ArcaneConstruct#p/u/10/ugYSgIgXAbo

His build: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=284478&highlight=shadowmage+build

His philosophy: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=127707&highlight=shadow+mage+philosophy

delsoboss
05-09-2011, 04:09 PM
Wondering if "assassinating" breakables can be used as a pullling tool since mobs move to investigate the noise and assassinate doesn't break stealth.

Stillwaters
05-09-2011, 04:28 PM
i wonder if the new Dragonmark that breaks a barrel can be used from stealth now... might have to test it out :)

WIN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QS0q3mGPGg

JollySwagMan
05-09-2011, 04:46 PM
Charming monsters/Dismissing charms:

As mentioned, Charming can help provide a wonderful distraction. However when dismissing a Charm, it is worth noting that if you stand behind the critter, it won't aggro. I prefer to have a Trip attack ready before dismissing the charm, and if you have a party or hirelings, you can try and synchronise the Trip attacks.

You can even go into sneak mode, dismiss the charm, then sneak off if you are aiming for no kills :D

Featherfalling:

Using featherfalling and a jump buff can help with stealthing/invis around Spiders/Oozes and such. One of my favourite scenarios for this is in The Xorian Cipher, sneaking in midair to Stun the named Scorpion in order to prevent him from burrowing all over the place.

Stillwaters
05-09-2011, 10:04 PM
Hopefully now the guide is colorised it is easier to read. forgive me for being lazy it was 4am my time when i wrote it.

Velexia
05-09-2011, 10:19 PM
Wondering if "assassinating" breakables can be used as a pullling tool since mobs move to investigate the noise and assassinate doesn't break stealth.


Yes, shhh =) (the nerfbat might be listening)

Stillwaters
05-09-2011, 10:44 PM
@ Velexia - this is SUPPOSED to be informative. A lot of players misunderstand stealth in DDO (esp me when i joined from Pen and Paper rules on it) If this helps ONE person learn to play better/soloplay/permadeath play i consider it a win!!

If you can do it stealthed - and it isnt above - POST IT!

I have been in so many zerg-rush wipes where once the healer/caster went down it was a guaranteed wipe cause no one can lose aggro and get stones to shrines.

Velexia
05-09-2011, 11:33 PM
I've seen a sickening amount of nerfs to stealth play since 2006. I just don't want to see any more. Rogue is my class man... they treat rogues like dirt here in DDO.

Stillwaters
05-10-2011, 12:05 AM
I'm on your side with regards to rogues Velexia. see my past thread on getting fort bypass - just before we finally got opportunist feat.

and a big ..I.. to us by not giving us +50% damage on our sneak attacks (they basically just gave all the non sneak attack classes our bonus damage on held-mobs even with spells YUK

But.. i still think stealth is hard enuff and ignored enough that most devs wont touch it
personally tumbling shouldn't break stealth imho but we gotta play by their rules.

Multivitamin
05-10-2011, 12:41 AM
Good job on thread lots of great info

Doganpc
05-10-2011, 12:43 AM
OMG, its like the Monsters are ALIVE! :D

Dogan
Kudos for showing others that the game is rather deep if underutilized.

Dralthan
05-10-2011, 01:36 AM
Good Post. An interesting read with alot of good information.

JollySwagMan
05-10-2011, 01:55 AM
Ahh another thing on jump/stealth dynamics:

While you cannot go into sneak mode while swimming, you can jump out of the water to stealth then continue swimming. I haven't noticed any reduction in speed when doing this.

Also, sneaking up ladders does not seem to be any slower than climbing a ladder normally. For this reason, I would recommend *always* hitting stealth while jumping onto a ladder.

Finally, monsters seem to be poor at recognising the sound of someone leaving water compared to regular footsteps. ...With a sufficient jump skill, and a monster's back turned to you...you can perform some very Tenchu-worthy maneuvers.

Of course, a lot of landscape features can be simply climbed over without requiring any jumping. Annoying if you're a Monk with a combo building up (as this interrupts it), but a viable means of staying in sneak mode in some places.

One thing that helps me play DDO in a more interactive way is setting up specific hotkeys. For instance, I'll set up the sneak toggle onto hotbar 5 space 1, and set up the ` (tilde) key for that slot. This allows me to quickly toggle stealth without worrying about what hotbar I have active, and it's in easy reach of the WASD keys.

Lithic
05-10-2011, 02:09 AM
Flaming spheres cast by players were changed to be killable by mobs. This was to prevent a rogue sneaking into the last room of the shadow quests, and launching wave after wave of flaming spheres without fear of death. I know, because I did this exact thing to solo the shadow tombs on elite back on Star's first life. Worked awesome! heh.

Now its possible this change was taken out in the meantime as I haven't used a flaming sphere in a year or two, but I am absolutely sure that player cast spheres are (or at least were) attackable/killable by mobs just like a summon spell.

Stillwaters
05-10-2011, 04:31 AM
Any chance a dev that reads this can put it in the Guides & Strategies section where it was originally intended to be??

/facepalm: (it was a mid-night sleepy thread start)

/begs

Stillwaters
05-10-2011, 08:48 AM
OK so the new dragonmarks (treasure finding) definitely work (and have a small range) while stealthed to break crates, and create diversions - i don't think the feat is worth taking personally but i will add it above...

Velexia
05-10-2011, 09:45 PM
I'm on your side with regards to rogues Velexia. see my past thread on getting fort bypass - just before we finally got opportunist feat.

and a big ..I.. to us by not giving us +50% damage on our sneak attacks (they basically just gave all the non sneak attack classes our bonus damage on held-mobs even with spells YUK

But.. i still think stealth is hard enuff and ignored enough that most devs wont touch it
personally tumbling shouldn't break stealth imho but we gotta play by their rules.


Well, not too long ago, we could attack from stealth, and hit boxes without breaking stealth. This was a very effective tool for distraction, and I used it quite a lot. I love stealth play.

It's been changed for one of two reasons. Either it was a change to stealth attacks against mobs, and the boxes got caught up in it accidentally, or it was also specifically targeted at boxes, but they forgot about assassinate (which is only useful for one type of rogue =( (my favorite, but still... )).

I worry that if we squeak our shiny wheels, they will take them away. =(

This last update was a very big kick in the nuts for Rogues. I don't remember the last time I rejoiced about an update in regards to my Rogue characters (because it's never happened).

TheHolyDarkness
05-10-2011, 10:22 PM
What skill thresholds are recommended to be decent for high level content? I've but only 4 ranks on my dex based ranger, but with items (such as the +15 Hide/MSilently provided by the CCove shortsword)...I dunno. Sorta remembered that I can boost my hide with a spell so I been trying to observe how I can perform without much rank investment.

As I ponder the possibility of LRing or TRing my ranger one of these days, I guess I kinda feel like reevaluating the skills. Seems I can hide well enough but I ponder what I would've needed for MSilent.

What kinds of total modifiers put you in the clear for say...

Vale/Subterrane?

Shavarath?

Low Diff Epics (Sentinals and Phiarlian)?

Medium Diff Epics (VoN, Fens, Desert)?

High Diff Epics (Chrono)?

Any hunches?

~TheHolyDarkness Out~

Stillwaters
05-10-2011, 11:36 PM
if you put 1 rank per 2 levels into hide/movesilent or 1/2 ranks by lvl 20 you should be fine thru levelling-
BOTH because higher lvl adventure mobs might have see invisibility.

Ghoste's Shadowmage is pure wizard and had 14DEX starting score and 13 ranks in each @ lvl 20.
(i suggest reading his PHILOSOPHY thread http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=127707&highlight=shadow+mage+philosophy and possibly his BUILD one http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=284478&highlight=shadowmage+build if you are interested in the wizard style play - he was a pioneer after all)

he wrote:


For the stealth skills, 60 is more than high enough for epic. Even a 40 hide is good enough for monsters with see invisibility. For some reason monsters in DDO universally have higher listen skill than spot skill. So even though 40 hide is high enough for epic, 40 ms definitely is not.


13 ranks, 15 item, +3 dex, +3 dt armor with skills, +4 Gh, +2 luck +20 wraithform (if palemaster) for move silent
13 ranks, 15 item, +3 dex, +3 dt armor with skills, +4 Gh, +2 luck +20 invisibility for hide

I'm also assuming that you have access to cash to get proper = lvl items from the auction house (this is standard for ANY char using important skills, trapspringers, fascinators etc)

Stillwaters
05-11-2011, 01:56 PM
does anyone know how to shift this thread to the guides n strategy forum section?

or should i re-post it there??

EDIT::
Ok i couldnt get the thread moved - so i re-posted it here
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=3786889&posted=1#post3786889

i'm sorry if this upsets anyone involved/responding to this thread

PLEASE DONT NECRO THIS THREAD :)