Sneak speed bug with DWS Faster Sneaking and Assassin Stealthy

[Fecerak]

I did some testing with this yesterday, and can confirm that they are stacking, but also noted something else that's pretty important. It seems as though sneaking has a speed limit of roughly 150% normal speed (guild buff + VIP bonus for instance would give the same bonus to any non-sneaking toon). For instance sprint boost didn't seem to apply at all when sneaking at super high speed. This means that while this stacking certainly is useful, it requires a pretty hefty AP requirement (16 AP needs to be spent between 3 trees in 3 specific classes to unlock it), and best case scenario is roughly as fast as a rogue/bard 20 with striding 30% and their class based speed buffs.

[Saekee]

I did some testing with this yesterday, and can confirm that they are stacking, but also noted something else that's pretty important. It seems as though sneaking has a speed limit of roughly 150% normal speed (guild buff + VIP bonus for instance would give the same bonus to any non-sneaking toon). For instance sprint boost didn't seem to apply at all when sneaking at super high speed. This means that while this stacking certainly is useful, it requires a pretty hefty AP requirement (16 AP needs to be spent between 3 trees in 3 specific classes to unlock it), and best case scenario is roughly as fast as a rogue/bard 20 with striding 30% and their class based speed buffs.

thanks for testing. Nokowi's post earlier details the specifics on how sneaking is calculated, but I can't quite figure them out...The Prowler in my sig uses barb run speed boost together with acrobat run speed to have a strong starting speed, compensating the slowness of sneak; I wonder how long it would take to stealth the distances I measured in Eveningstar (my only Prowler is level 13 28pt build on Wayfinder as a fun test).

The only toon that would make sense to dump all the AP into such a fast scuttler, as I see it, would be 12 rogue/6 monk/2 ranger drow thrower. You can max dex and benefit from that helping out the number of shurikens as well as HS/MS; you get 10K, shadow veil, Sting of Ninja and rogue venomed blades. The 8 dropped into DWS can also be reset and put into KtA for grouping/raids. With contemplation from Henshin and master of forms water stance, there would be an excellent stream of ki for 10K and shadow veil. The same level split could fit in Manyshot and alternate bow usage at the cost of an epic feat. It would have adequate sneak damage too and good movement speed (10% from monk and 12 from the rogue levels).



13 ninja spy (shadow veil, Sting)
11 henshin (quickdraw, 30 MP)
8 DWS (or Harper for KtA)
3 acrobat (faster sneaking)
8 assassin, to venomed blades
37 Mechanic


Ranged power: 20 +4 from weapon focus feats, 10% doubleshot
melee power: 30 (which boosts venomed blades and Sting damage)


leveling
1 rogue PBS
2-3 ranger Rapid shot (free); (3) weapon focus: thrown
4-9 monk precision; toughness (or Zen Archery); 10K, (6) weapon focus: ranged
(9) Precise Shot
10-20 rogue (12) IC: thrown (15) IPS (18) Master of Forms
Rogue: Improved evasion


21 OC (or Manyshot)
24 Improved sneak attack
etc.

[Fecerak]

I'm currently utilizing it in a 12 Monk/6 Ranger/1 Rogue build (with last level still undecided) which I'm currently leveling on my main toon (since I can always just TR again if this somehow gets fixed, though I feel like there are more important bugs to fix, particularly since this one requires a fairly specific build on top of 16 AP, most of "wasted" in that it doesn't affect in-combat performance). I've had a lot of fun so far, as getting all three enhancements gives me +9 to hide/MS on top of all the speed making me almost undetectable at level. That combined with the fast speed makes for some really quick quest completions (though annoyingly you unsneak whenever something tries to hit you which has been somewhat of an issue compared to my usual invis-running of quests).

I am noticing though that I'm quite AP-starved, but so far it's been among my most fun builds ever (currently doing TWF shortswords, but also have a bunch of ranged feats in case I need/want to use a shuriken at some point. At this point in time I'm at level 12, but due to the heavy AP-restrictions of getting all these sneak speed bonuses I am forgoing T5 in ninja spy for now (probably not going to pick it up before around level 18-20 somewhere, at which point i'll prolly grab the ninja spy doublestrike clicky and the threat range bonus). Dps has been fairly okay, though I'm losing a lot of dps by soloing as I'd do 6d6+1 sneak attack damage per hit currently. Hoping my radiance shortsword will fix some of that, will need more testing tomorrow.

Current plan at 20 is something like:
34 AP in Ninja Spy (grabbing crit range and double strike clicky in T5), 8 in shintao (10% offhand and 20 PRR), 11 in henshin (quick draw and 30 melee power), 9 in tempest (10% offhand and haste boost), 11 in DWS (sneaking and first 3 cores) and 4 in assassin (sneaking) which leaves a total of 3 points which unfortunately isn't enough to grab KTA (though I suppose I'd need another tree slot for that anyways given that you can only have enhancements from 6 trees at once), so I'm guessing I'm going to grab something like 1d6 more SA in assassin and maybe 1 point in the assassin poison stance or something, not sure. Would love to have like 150 AP instead, but such is life sometimes.

I'll report back on how the Shadowdancer ability applies to all of this when I hit 20 probably.

[Saekee]

I'm currently utilizing it in a 12 Monk/6 Ranger/1 Rogue build (with last level still undecided) which I'm currently leveling on my main toon (since I can always just TR again if this somehow gets fixed, though I feel like there are more important bugs to fix, particularly since this one requires a fairly specific build on top of 16 AP, most of "wasted" in that it doesn't affect in-combat performance). I've had a lot of fun so far, as getting all three enhancements gives me +9 to hide/MS on top of all the speed making me almost undetectable at level. That combined with the fast speed makes for some really quick quest completions (though annoyingly you unsneak whenever something tries to hit you which has been somewhat of an issue compared to my usual invis-running of quests).

I am noticing though that I'm quite AP-starved, but so far it's been among my most fun builds ever (currently doing TWF shortswords, but also have a bunch of ranged feats in case I need/want to use a shuriken at some point. At this point in time I'm at level 12, but due to the heavy AP-restrictions of getting all these sneak speed bonuses I am forgoing T5 in ninja spy for now (probably not going to pick it up before around level 18-20 somewhere, at which point i'll prolly grab the ninja spy doublestrike clicky and the threat range bonus). Dps has been fairly okay, though I'm losing a lot of dps by soloing as I'd do 6d6+1 sneak attack damage per hit currently. Hoping my radiance shortsword will fix some of that, will need more testing tomorrow.

Current plan at 20 is something like:
34 AP in Ninja Spy (grabbing crit range and double strike clicky in T5), 8 in shintao (10% offhand and 20 PRR), 11 in henshin (quick draw and 30 melee power), 9 in tempest (10% offhand and haste boost), 11 in DWS (sneaking and first 3 cores) and 4 in assassin (sneaking) which leaves a total of 3 points which unfortunately isn't enough to grab KTA (though I suppose I'd need another tree slot for that anyways given that you can only have enhancements from 6 trees at once), so I'm guessing I'm going to grab something like 1d6 more SA in assassin and maybe 1 point in the assassin poison stance or something, not sure. Would love to have like 150 AP instead, but such is life sometimes.

I'll report back on how the Shadowdancer ability applies to all of this when I hit 20 probably.

That looks like a solid build! In epics you may want to focus completely on being a thrower and using sniper shot or going melee with exposing strike etc.
It would be great to get both venomed blades from assassin as well as Sting from ninja for a strong combo, adding in some henshin cores for melee power (mp boosts sting). It is good to be AP starved; that means choices.

Your build will get a base run speed of 20 from monk so that saves the acrobat AP of 3 for fast movement. 12 monk gets abundant step so with shadow veil, abundant step and super fast sneaking, you can have a lot of fun in epic quests. The only thing really missing is the noisemaker trap, but you can use flaming sphere scrolls as an occasional substitute and for their own uses (they break stealth).

Shadowdancer has the super fast sneaky clickie; I am really wondering what will happen with these ehancements when that is clicked. ANother but is with the Boots of Grounding in Haunted Halls (can't take them out, sadly; in quest only). I was CRUISING in sneak with those. Weird.

[Fecerak]

My current plan is to avoid using throwers, relying mostly on melee (since I hate ranged), though I will keep a shuriken in cases where having a ranged weapon is very beneficial. I intend to test the shadowdancer clicky when I get to 20, so I'll report back then. I'm not quite seeing why the assassin venomed blades in combination with the ninja poison is going to be that amazing?

The way I see it is that in most cases I'll get to maybe 5-10 stacks at most even against high HP mobs before they die. Even assuming I get to 20 stacks, that's a 100% increase to the venomed blades. Assuming I take 3 points in it that's 1d8 (average 4.5) multiplied by 2 from vulnerability and increased by melee power. Assuming 100 melee power the rank 3 venomed blades is only adding 18 or so damage per hit, which obviously isn't bad, but considering this is a best-case scenario that won't happen all the time I'm not quite seeing how it's that amazing. With my current AP setup I have 3 points to spare at the end, which probably will be 1d6 SA in assassin and 1 point of venomed blades, so I guess I'll see how powerful it is to some degree.

I'd also note that if I wanted, I have 3 feats (the level 3, 6 and 9 ones) that I don't really use for very important stuff, so the build could easily be adapted to pick up trapmaking using those spare feats (instead of 2 of dodge/skulk of shadows/PBS). The main issue with that (and also with grabbing the 2% movespeed from TA (since it's based off your rogue level)) is that you can only have 6 trees at the same time, and to utilize the build you kinda *need* to have ninja spy, assassin and deepwood stalker, and shintao, tempest and henshin are all also very useful, making it impossible to get the trap DC/TA movespeed without dropping one of those trees. That said, noisemakers do seem pretty neat after quickly looking at what they do, so it could potentially be worth it.

[Saekee]

My current plan is to avoid using throwers, relying mostly on melee (since I hate ranged), though I will keep a shuriken in cases where having a ranged weapon is very beneficial. I intend to test the shadowdancer clicky when I get to 20, so I'll report back then. I'm not quite seeing why the assassin venomed blades in combination with the ninja poison is going to be that amazing?

The way I see it is that in most cases I'll get to maybe 5-10 stacks at most even against high HP mobs before they die. Even assuming I get to 20 stacks, that's a 100% increase to the venomed blades. Assuming I take 3 points in it that's 1d8 (average 4.5) multiplied by 2 from vulnerability and increased by melee power. Assuming 100 melee power the rank 3 venomed blades is only adding 18 or so damage per hit, which obviously isn't bad, but considering this is a best-case scenario that won't happen all the time I'm not quite seeing how it's that amazing. With my current AP setup I have 3 points to spare at the end, which probably will be 1d6 SA in assassin and 1 point of venomed blades, so I guess I'll see how powerful it is to some degree.

I'd also note that if I wanted, I have 3 feats (the level 3, 6 and 9 ones) that I don't really use for very important stuff, so the build could easily be adapted to pick up trapmaking using those spare feats (instead of 2 of dodge/skulk of shadows/PBS). The main issue with that (and also with grabbing the 2% movespeed from TA (since it's based off your rogue level)) is that you can only have 6 trees at the same time, and to utilize the build you kinda *need* to have ninja spy, assassin and deepwood stalker, and shintao, tempest and henshin are all also very useful, making it impossible to get the trap DC/TA movespeed without dropping one of those trees. That said, noisemakers do seem pretty neat after quickly looking at what they do, so it could potentially be worth it.

you can't pick up trapmaking--it requires 4 rogue or 4 arti

For venomed blades: it is not for mobs but the big hp bags.
venomed blades scale 200% with melee power, more than sneak damage
Sting of the ninja, if using a full stack, will double the damage of venomed blades.
Sting also scales with melee power, but I do not know how much. I assume the Damage over Time of Sting is what scales, not its further effects on venomed blades.

The idea is to use lootgen/cannith crafted (cannith poison is 4d6 at level 20) venomed/poison blades & rogue venom blades in conjunction with Sting for some nice damage. If you have rogues in your party, they will also benefit from Sting stacks. The named weapon Envenomed Blade is not as good now as lootgen/cannith poison.

[Fecerak]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Trapmaking

According to the wiki it seems as though it would be possible potentially, as long as you're willing to blow 2 feats on it. Am I understanding this wrong? Otherwise what would be the point of listing SF: DD/Nimble fingers as a prereq if you get it automatically anyways?

EDIT: Just went into character creation with a level 1 rogue, and it does indeed seem as though I'm right unless I'm missing something. It does take 2 feats though, so some may find this to be too step of a cost.

[Saekee]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Trapmaking

According to the wiki it seems as though it would be possible potentially, as long as you're willing to blow 2 feats on it. Am I understanding this wrong? Otherwise what would be the point of listing SF: DD/Nimble fingers as a prereq if you get it automatically anyways?

EDIT: Just went into character creation with a level 1 rogue, and it does indeed seem as though I'm right unless I'm missing something. It does take 2 feats though, so some may find this to be too step of a cost.

I always assumed that you needed four levels of rogue or artificer. This is new to me. If you have tested with a quick build, then I guess that is correct. I would test it with a champion throwaway build or iconic.
(Trapfinding is different than trapmaking.)

[Fecerak]

I always assumed that you needed four levels of rogue or artificer. This is new to me. If you have tested with a quick build, then I guess that is correct. I would test it with a champion throwaway build or iconic.
(Trapfinding is different than trapmaking.)

I basically made a human rogue 1 in character creation, selected SF: DD as my first feat, and noted that trapmaking showed up as an available feat.

[Fecerak]

This is actually quite annoying, as web traps actually sound awesome for the build, as do noisemakers. But to utilize the web traps I'd need to spend 8 AP in mechanic. And this currently isn't possible with my current tree selection as it's only possible to have 6 trees at the same time. With 3 trees being set from the start to get all the sneaking speed bonuses this only leaves with me 3 options if I want to get the mechanic improved traps:

1. Sacrifice henshin mystic.
I believe this one is the worst of the options as 9 PRR and 30 melee power alone makes it stronger than the other trees, not to mention quick draw, way of the elegant crane, etc.

2. Sacrifice tempest.
This one also hurts a lot because you lose haste boost and 10% offhand strike, 5 PRR/MRR (with 2 points in improved defences which also improves my deflect arrows feats).

3. Sacrifice shintao.
This might be the only possible choice I think, but sacrificing 20 PRR and 10% offhand strike is a lot. Web traps seem incredibly awesome though - anyone know if they allow you to SA when mobs are stuck in them?

[Saekee]

This is actually quite annoying, as web traps actually sound awesome for the build, as do noisemakers. But to utilize the web traps I'd need to spend 8 AP in mechanic. And this currently isn't possible with my current tree selection as it's only possible to have 6 trees at the same time. With 3 trees being set from the start to get all the sneaking speed bonuses this only leaves with me 3 options if I want to get the mechanic improved traps:

1. Sacrifice henshin mystic.
I believe this one is the worst of the options as 9 PRR and 30 melee power alone makes it stronger than the other trees, not to mention quick draw, way of the elegant crane, etc.

2. Sacrifice tempest.
This one also hurts a lot because you lose haste boost and 10% offhand strike, 5 PRR/MRR (with 2 points in improved defences which also improves my deflect arrows feats).

3. Sacrifice shintao.
This might be the only possible choice I think, but sacrificing 20 PRR and 10% offhand strike is a lot. Web traps seem incredibly awesome though - anyone know if they allow you to SA when mobs are stuck in them?

if you were a thrower, you would bave no issues!
Even without web traps, trapmaking allows for noisemakers which really help stealth quests.

But with extra feats in the low levels, I would put them in weapon focus feats for the extra MP.

[Fecerak]

Did some quick testing as I just hit 20:
Monk 12/Ranger 6/Rogue 2.

Running from the airship entrance to the sorrowdusk spokesperson.

No sneak (but notably 20% speed from monk, which most toons wont have access to): 29.9 seconds.
Sneaking: 33.3 seconds (which is the same as with 5% and 10% from monk, suggesting I've reached a cap of some kind).
Shadowdancer full sneaking speed clicky: 17.7 seconds.
Shadowdancer full sneaking speed clicky + tempest sprint boost: 17.8 seconds (which definitely is within margin of error as its hard to measure these things exact).

This suggests to me that shadowdancer clicky definitely works with all the faster sneaking, however it still takes into account the sneak speed cap I've hit.

[Saekee]

Did some quick testing as I just hit 20:
Monk 12/Ranger 6/Rogue 2.

Running from the airship entrance to the sorrowdusk spokesperson.

No sneak (but notably 20% speed from monk, which most toons wont have access to): 29.9 seconds.
Sneaking: 33.3 seconds (which is the same as with 5% and 10% from monk, suggesting I've reached a cap of some kind).
Shadowdancer full sneaking speed clicky: 17.7 seconds.
Shadowdancer full sneaking speed clicky + tempest sprint boost: 17.8 seconds (which definitely is within margin of error as its hard to measure these things exact).

This suggests to me that shadowdancer clicky definitely works with all the faster sneaking, however it still takes into account the sneak speed cap I've hit.

Is this with all 3 sneak enhancements? What happens when only 1 or 2 are active? It would require some AP resetting.

I think it would be ideal to use a longer distance, like the demond sands run from the back temple to the entrance. I used an iconic in estar and raced from the entrances of King's Forest to Thunderholme. I lagged a little though and had to redo it a few times.

With the toon I made, with all three enhancements, i was sneaking faster than running. Maybe the rogue boost to sneak speed (being the strongest) may be multiplying with acrobat in some way. If I could get that build to 20, that could be interesting.

Devs, is this WAI?

[Jetrule]

Is this with all 3 sneak enhancements? What happens when only 1 or 2 are active? It would require some AP resetting.

I think it would be ideal to use a longer distance, like the demond sands run from the back temple to the entrance. I used an iconic in estar and raced from the entrances of King's Forest to Thunderholme. I lagged a little though and had to redo it a few times.

With the toon I made, with all three enhancements, i was sneaking faster than running. Maybe the rogue boost to sneak speed (being the strongest) may be multiplying with acrobat in some way. If I could get that build to 20, that could be interesting.

Devs, is this WAI?

I currently have my old first character on Ghalanda as a 14 rogue 6 ranger. Sneaking with both sneak speed enhancement lines and rogue fast movement he is faster than most characters in a group running. But not all. He is slightly faster than a barb for instance. He is like the wind with ranger sprint boost and sneak attack training 2 from shadow dancer activated. The graphics just stutter by and is at least twice as fast as say a 19 bard 1 barb running is. When the easy to use server change is implemented i will get him in guild and we can super zerg stealth some things maybe.

[Saekee]

I currently have my old first character on Ghalanda as a 14 rogue 6 ranger sneaking with both sneak speed enhancement lines and rogue fast movement he is faster than most characters in a group running. but not all. He is slightly faster than a barb for instance. He is like the wind with ranger sprint boost and sneak attack training 2 from shadow dancer activated. The graphics just stutter by and is at least twice as fast as say a 19 bard 1 barb running is. When the easy to use server change is implemented i will get him in guild and we can super zerg stealth some things maybe.

Cool. I think we can eventually test fastest sneak speeds. My prowler assassin only uses rogue but has 1 barb for extra movement speed, so her sneak speed is good.

[Fecerak]

Is this with all 3 sneak enhancements? What happens when only 1 or 2 are active? It would require some AP resetting.

I think it would be ideal to use a longer distance, like the demond sands run from the back temple to the entrance. I used an iconic in estar and raced from the entrances of King's Forest to Thunderholme. I lagged a little though and had to redo it a few times.

With the toon I made, with all three enhancements, i was sneaking faster than running. Maybe the rogue boost to sneak speed (being the strongest) may be multiplying with acrobat in some way. If I could get that build to 20, that could be interesting.

Devs, is this WAI?

Basically, I believe the reason for me being faster when not sneaking than when sneaking are for 2 reasons.

1. I believe that sneaking may be a multiplicative 50% penalty to your speed. The result of this is that if you have other bonuses to speed (like striding and such) these bonuses basically only apply half of their value when sneaking. This means that given enough bonuses to speed not sneaking is going to be faster than sneaking.

2. Sneaking speed seems to have some sort of cap, at about 150% normal movement speed. I believe that if you stack enough sneaking speed bonuses you eventually hit a cap at which no bonuses matter anymore. For instance, I noticed a fair difference in speed when using sprint boost with 1-2 of the enhancements, but when all 3 were on there was no difference.

Also has to be noted that all 3 definitely stack - I spent roughly 38 seconds from airship to sorrowdusk guy with only 2 bonuses compared to 33 seconds with all 3 (I suppose that it might be possible that assassin stacks with 1 of the others while DWS and NS doesn't stack, but I doubt it, and enhancement resets are getting so expensive in plat now that I don't really want to reset them for a few days).

Has to be mentioned though that if there indeed is some kind of speed cap then you might not need all enhancements to reach this cap. Guessing it potentially might be possible to get away with 1 less point in faster sneaking, though haven't tested that yet.

Originally I was thinking that this wasn't WAI, though I noted recently that the NS subtlety enhancements specifically says that it will lock out similar enhancements in other trees while faster sneaking doesn't. I also think that this behaviour, even if potentially unintended, doesn't really have any detrimental effects on gameplay, as sneaking isn't really utilized much, if at all, currently, so if this interaction is what it needs to actually have people using it again, then I don't see why people shouldn't be allowed to have their fun.

[Dalros]

This is something i found out recently if you use shadow dancer destiny, the shadow training II clicky combine with faster sneak enhancement makes you move faster sneaking than you are unstealth. Combine that with shadow form, you are practically skating in high speed. I actually overshot the mob i was trying to assassinate trying to chase it down. I wonder if i should take the time and do a video of it, but my pc isn't the best (i share my pc with my husband). But if someone wants to record it let me know, and i'm on Orien server

[Saekee]

This is something i found out recently if you use shadow dancer destiny, the shadow training II clicky combine with faster sneak enhancement makes you move faster sneaking than you are unstealth. Combine that with shadow form, you are practically skating in high speed. I actually overshot the mob i was trying to assassinate trying to chase it down. I wonder if i should take the time and do a video of it, but my pc isn't the best (i share my pc with my husband). But if someone wants to record it let me know, and i'm on Orien server

thx Dalros! Yes, we know about this--it is a lot of fun flying super fast with that sneak clicky. When I was farming ToEE nodes in Part II it was my sanity-saver.
When you are in Haunted Halls, try putting on the Boots of Grounding. They have the same effect! At least, the last time my main was there (6 months ago).

[Fecerak]

This is something i found out recently if you use shadow dancer destiny, the shadow training II clicky combine with faster sneak enhancement makes you move faster sneaking than you are unstealth. Combine that with shadow form, you are practically skating in high speed. I actually overshot the mob i was trying to assassinate trying to chase it down. I wonder if i should take the time and do a video of it, but my pc isn't the best (i share my pc with my husband). But if someone wants to record it let me know, and i'm on Orien server

Indeed, I already also have a video of it (with all 3 sneak enhancement lines + the clicky).

https://www.twitch.tv/qualdrion/v/102792967 is me using it to speedrun fathom the depths.

[Saekee]

Indeed, I already also have a video of it (with all 3 sneak enhancement lines + the clicky).

https://www.twitch.tv/qualdrion/v/102792967 is me using it to speedrun fathom the depths.

nice video and run!

It is like watching a spider running around