R.O.G.U.E Part Quatre: Call for Stealthy Players!

[Saekee]

**** OFFICIALLY CLOSED TO NEW ENTRANTS ****


This thread continues a long-standing tradition of challenging stealthy players. Unlike in the past, there are not multiple categories. Just a group of quests to be completed at the character level listed below (or lower) on elite. I have put this in the achievement section because completing any number of the challenges below is a worthy achievement. Note: Cordovan has offered to alter forum titles for successful players and send the toon the rare Shen's Robe, a great twink stealth item with no ML!

This will be open for one year, so do not feel rushed.

There have been great obstacles erected to stealthplay in the past year or so, but such obstacles simply raise the difficulty. Reapers auto-detect stealthed characters, so that setting has been eliminated from these proving grounds.

The Rules

• Teamplay is fine but all members of the team must be at the appropriate level. So when doing the screenies, please place the reticle over your squad member. Since that can only be done with one other player, we can only allow one other.
• if you use something that is not WAI, just boast about it. We are roguish and that is what we do.
• You must use the same toon but you can do it over multiple lives, e.g. if in one life you cannot do it as a ninja, but figure out how to complete one as an assassin, that is fine. No rush! Edit: I am easing this rule since one can cheat anyway if they wanted to by doctoring images. So this is encouraged but not required.
• No other rules

HOW TO PROVE YOUR WORTH

1. Create a first post here introducing your character's lethal background. This post you will modify later with successful completions so that they are all stored on one page on the forums.
2. create new posts each time you succeed (then cut and paste them to your initial post that collects them together)
3. Cruel boasts are encouraged

The Challenges All must be done by the character <= the level listed and on elite.
Level 2: Faux Frozen Fish Sticks of Mystery: Stopping the Sahuagin, 2 kills (Kamimitsu challenge: 0 kills)
Level 4: The Saint: Stealthy Repossession, all prophets alive, 25 kills
Level 6: The Insurrectionist: Irestone Inlet, kill only the officers and free the prisoners (3-6 kills depending on optionals spawns, 3 misadventures)
Level 8: The Assassination of Rowan Watzun from Shadow_Jumper (Hsoftl), 10 kills max, no traps, no prisoners freed. Update: 1 kill only from Spellburst. Update2: no kills from Saekee.
Level 9: The Insurrectionist, Redux: Gwylan's Stand, kill only the officers and complete quest (5 kills max)
Level 10: The Cache Break: Claw of Vulkoor, 1 kill, all optionals, 45 breakables
Level 12: The Bauble Purser: Maraud the Mines, no kills.
Level 13: The Scalpel: Frame Work, 1 kill, no alarms.
Level 14: The Liberator: Blockade Buster, all optionals, kill all captains (no limits on kills)
Level 15: The Fallen Albatross: The Crucible, solo; hirelings permitted. No other conditions.
Level 16: Invisible Stalker: Through a Mirror Darkly, no kills prior to elevator ride.
Level 17: The Wiles Master: The Mask of Deception, 60 misadventure kills. No completion necessary. (the 'fun' break.)
Level 18: Best Intender: Good Intentions, reach end fight with no kills.
Level 19: The Peacebreaker: Schemes of the Enemy, 25 misadventure kills, no actual kills, no completion necessary.

[B]Links to Finishers:
Saekee, The Merciful Blade
Hsoftl, The Shadow Assassin
Cambo, Waylander of the Stolen Blade
Spellburst, Por la Sombria
Zeolite, The Confused
Lurica, The Ghost

Links to the Contestants:
Esephal Drenbirth
Kamimitsu
Tuxedosneak
DYWYPI Shyntrae


Once you have succeeded in all the above, you can post new ones for others to match.

If people participate, then I will add epic challenges, then legendary.

Useful links:
Hosftl above is video-recording his runs, so you can watch them for tips!
Stealth guide. I helped make some of this, a bit outdated
Faster sneaking stacks from multiple enhancement trees (DWS, Ninja, Assassin) and is WAI. See this thread.
My guide to using Flaming Spheres
DDO wiki's Stealth page
DDO wiki's Trapmaking page.
Weave in the Fade: my tips on using Shadow walk including other helpful stuff
Annex's observations about stealth while overlevel in Irestone Inlet

fun screenies:

[Saekee]

Saekee, The Merciful Blade, first a drow, now halfling, has journeyed through the shadows of Cannith in multiple incarnations. She avoids unnecessary deaths in her efforts to complete her missions, making even her enemies revere her 'kindness.'

Level 2: Stopping the Sahuagin
Level 4: Stealthy Repossession
Level 6: Irestone Inlet
Level 8: The Assassination of Rowan Watsun
Level 9: Gwylan's Stand
Level 10: Claw of Vulkoor
Level 12: Maraud the Mines
Level 13: Frame Work
Level 14: Blockade Buster
Level 15: The Crucible
Level 16: Through a Mirror Darkly
Level 17: The Mask of Deception
Level 18: Good Intentions
Level 19: Schemes of the Enemy



Screenie of Saekee consulting with Selda in House Phiarlan

[blerkington]

It's a good service by you to the community to revive this idea. So thank you and well done. Can't rep you again right now but will try again later.

I do have two questions with which I'm hoping you can help me. The first is about a quest that used to be in this list, but isn't anymore; Sins of Attrition. The narrow corridors and sudden spawns in this quest make it difficult to complete without anything more than the usual handful of misadventure kills.

Is this quest one that can still be done with the current stealth system? Teleporting mobs and their telepathic location of us, once they've discovered us, seems to make it harder than it used to be. Are you aware of any technique for getting away from a teleporting monster once it's aware of you?

The second is more general. What is it that determines how long monsters search for you once they're aware of your presence but you've moved away and gone back into stealth? On some of my unsuccessful stealth runs, enemies sometimes seem to keep looking for me for an inordinately long period of time, and dungeon alert also seems to go down really slowly too. Do you have any tips for cutting these periods down?

I get the impression putting as much distance as possible between you and the monsters helps, but apart from that, anything else? Another stealth player has also suggested that using a ddoor and going back into stealth can actually make this problem worse, because re-stealthing while monsters are alert lets them locate you telepathically, while standing still and going invisible may not.

It used to be a lot easier to recover a blown stealth run than it is under the current system, and I'm interested in any advice that helps with this beyond restarting the quest or waiting 20+ minutes for things to calm down.

Thanks.

[Saekee]

It's a good service by you to the community to revive this idea. So thank you and well done. Can't rep you again right now but will try again later.

I do have two questions with which I'm hoping you can help me. The first is about a quest that used to be in this list, but isn't anymore; Sins of Attrition. The narrow corridors and sudden spawns in this quest make it difficult to complete without anything more than the usual handful of misadventure kills.

Is this quest one that can still be done with the current stealth system? Teleporting mobs and their telepathic location of us, once they've discovered us, seems to make it harder than it used to be. Are you aware of any technique for getting away from a teleporting monster once it's aware of you?

The second is more general. What is it that determines how long monsters search for you once they're aware of your presence but you've moved away and gone back into stealth? On some of my unsuccessful stealth runs, enemies sometimes seem to keep looking for me for an inordinately long period of time, and dungeon alert also seems to go down really slowly too. Do you have any tips for cutting these periods down?

I get the impression putting as much distance as possible between you and the monsters helps, but apart from that, anything else? Another stealth player has also suggested that using a ddoor and going back into stealth can actually make this problem worse, because re-stealthing while monsters are alert lets them locate you telepathically, while standing still and going invisible may not.

It used to be a lot easier to recover a blown stealth run than it is under the current system, and I'm interested in any advice that helps with this beyond restarting the quest or waiting 20+ minutes for things to calm down.

Thanks.

hi Blerk, thanks for posting! I hope you enter one of your characters.

I am not sure what determines how long the mobs look for you. I was doing Sykros Jewel and found that the trolls searched endlessly for me, even following into areas that would have been impossible for them to know. It is part of the new broken mechanics. Basically, if you are spotted, they will find you eventually. Yet, there have been quests in which they have stopped at some point and wandered back to their original locations. In some cases, it becomes a race against time as they ping away hunting you, whereas can simmer down (even while they are still looking for you). Seems like separate mechanics but I am honestly not sure. I have thrown my efforts into never being seen over trying to make sense of the current alert system TBH.

DA--I am not even sure how it works. There are times I feel I should have triggered DA (and did not) and other times I have no idea why it went off. Monster champs seem to alert their entire group when they spot you which often triggers instant DA. I have shaken off DA with about 2 minutes time on the earliest of cases and putting lots of distance between me and them; if the distance is not there, putting lots of obstacles (that block line of sight) helps hugely. Jumping seems to help too, oddly, so jump around. Being invisible really helps too--not sure why. In non-champ challenges (the Night Revels) I have seen entire groups just freeze when I jump about invisibly and in stealth. Also, not killing or attacking them reduces DA somewhat or prevents the worst of it triggering (an assassinate that is spotted is just bad news). I am pretty sure that I got low DA in Gwylan's but that was a while ago...

I am getting DA in Epic Grey Garl where I used to never get it (can still do a low-kill completion though) and found that in Grey Garl, there is so much distance one can go to get away from large groups. I used to never get DA in Mirror Darkly but now I sometimes do.

Frame Work is designed with an alert system in place which has gotten completely borked by the DA system. I had avoided scouts and completed it with the 'No alarm' option and yet there was red DA (or whatever)! Crazy mess. I can't figure out the logic and some quests may have been individually tweaked like ToEE. I got DA in Maraud the Mines at the very, very end as I past by a standing guard on the platforms just a little too closely. It really surprised me!

Putting a noisemaker down while there is DA seems to provoke it whereas a flaming sphere seems to help. Not really sure; I was just doing this stuff in ToEE which has the modified DA algorithms (hence why it is not in the list for ROGUE right now...maybe in an epic version).

DDoor just results in the mobs weirdly coming to the beginning of the quest looking for you. However, since they ping you somehow and follow each ping, it really delays their search.

Not sure if this helps at all...

[blerkington]

Not sure if this helps at all...

Thank you for the quick reply.

This does actually help quite a lot because it confirms my suspicion that this is just more stuff about stealth that is broken. It doesn't sound like I'm missing anything obvious for dealing with being spotted and the key is just not to be seen in the first place. Recovery is much harder than it used to be if not impossible.

I do appreciate the effort you're making to keep this going on the forums. It really helps combat the devs' belief no-one is interested in this stuff so it doesn't matter if for the sake of protecting their ego-investment in reaper they wreck what used to be quite a charming and enjoyable part of the game. And not just in reaper, but in every other difficulty setting too.

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be relevelling through heroics on a stealth based character anytime soon though. During a recent racial reincarnation I managed to complete Blockade Buster with only 16 kills, but that was with the Captain of the Carnage left alive because I didn't want to risk alerting everyone on his ship by fighting him up on deck. So that doesn't count and I only have a completion screenshot anyway.

Take care.

[Saekee]

Thank you for the quick reply.

This does actually help quite a lot because it confirms my suspicion that this is just more stuff about stealth that is broken. It doesn't sound like I'm missing anything obvious for dealing with being spotted and the key is just not to be seen in the first place. Recovery is much harder than it used to be if not impossible.

I do appreciate the effort you're making to keep this going on the forums. It really helps combat the devs' belief no-one is interested in this stuff so it doesn't matter if for the sake of protecting their ego-investment in reaper they wreck what used to be quite a charming and enjoyable part of the game. And not just in reaper, but in every other difficulty setting too.

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be relevelling through heroics on a stealth based character anytime soon though. During a recent racial reincarnation I managed to complete Blockade Buster with only 16 kills, but that was with the Captain of the Carnage left alive because I didn't want to risk alerting everyone on his ship by fighting him up on deck. So that doesn't count and I only have a completion screenshot anyway.

Take care.

Ok—good to hear back. This trial 4 will be open for a while—no rush for players to achieve it in a few months since the quests are mostly older and the stealth mechanics cannot be worsened than they already are!

Quick note on Blockade Buster—for The Liberator challenge herr, there are no minimum kills—just all optionals. I found that Bash was not so hard—I would assassinate the patrolling guard and then take him out. It was the gnoll boss that would race to his <expletive> gong.

[Saekee]

good news—Cordovan will change your forum title (to something roguish of your choice) if you are able to complete all the challenges.

[bjones0064]

Challenge accepted. I will be adding my quest completions and screenshots as I move forward. Good luck guys!

Stopping the Sahuagin completed

https://i.imgur.com/4QKnQGs.jpg

Stealthy Repossession completed

https://imgur.com/a/HYbcW

[bjones0064]

I'm on level 19 right now. I will go ahead and racial TR and make my assassin build again.

[Saekee]

Challenge accepted.

I'm on level 19 right now. I will go ahead and racial TR and make my assassin build again.

great! Don't forget to create a special post that you will then modify with links to your accomplishments

[Saekee]

More good news: Cordovan will give a Shen's Robe to all successful participants. No ML nice twink item (except for toaster builds).

[Spellburst]

Saekee, great to see that you have set the challenge on. I really enjoyed following your proving grounds when you were still planning to do this... so I am sure I will enjoy even more the challenge itself!

Glad to see there is no need to rush, as I have the toon I plan to use for the challenge in the middle of a TR. I am slow when leveling, so may take some months before I start.

Great news about Cordovan offers for this challenge. I suppose a successful participant is one that gets all the challenges done. Not sure if I will be able to do them all ;-P Anyhow, I am sure I will have a good time trying, being successful in all of them or not.

[Saekee]

Saekee, great to see that you have set the challenge on. I really enjoyed following your proving grounds when you were still planning to do this... so I am sure I will enjoy even more the challenge itself!

Glad to see there is no need to rush, as I have the toon I plan to use for the challenge in the middle of a TR. I am slow when leveling, so may take some months before I start.

Great news about Cordovan offers for this challenge. I suppose a successful participant is one that gets all the challenges done. Not sure if I will be able to do them all ;-P Anyhow, I am sure I will have a good time trying, being successful in all of them or not.

Glad to see you back! Feel free to create a ‘profile post’ and I will link it to the main page

[Spellburst]

Achieved challenges of Spellburst (Argonnessen), Shadar-Kai pure rogue.

- Level 2: Stopping the Sahuagin, Faux Frozen Fish Sticks of Mystery, 2 kills (Kamimitsu challenge: 0 kills). Video
- Level 4: Stealthy Repossession, The Saint and videos, all prophets alive, 25 kills
- Level 6: Irestone Inlet, The Insurrectionist, kill only the officers and free the prisoners (3-6 kills depending on optionals spawns, 3 misadventures). Video
- Level 8: Spies in the House, The Assassination of Rowan Watzun from Shadow_Jumper (Hsoftl), 10 kills max, no traps, no prisoners freed. Video
- Level 9: Gwylan's Stand, The Insurrectionist, Redux, kill only the officers and complete quest (5 kills max). Video
- Level 10: Claw of Vulkoor, The Cache Break, 1 kill, all optionals, 45 breakables. Video
- Level 12: Maraud the Mines, The Bauble Purser, no kills. Video
- Level 13: Frame Work, The Scalpel, 1 kill, no alarms. Video
- Level 14: Blockade Buster, The Liberator, all optionals, kill all captains (no limits on kills). Video
- Level 15: The Crucible, The Fallen Albatross, solo; hirelings permitted. No other conditions. Video
- Level 16: Through a Mirror Darkly, Invisible Stalker, no kills prior to elevator ride. Video
- Level 17: The Mask of Deception, The Wiles Master, 60 misadventure kills. No completion necessary. (The 'fun' break) Video
- Level 18: Good Intentions, Best Intender, reach end fight with no kills. Video
- Level 19: Schemes of the Enemy, The Peacebreaker, 25 misadventure kills, no actual kills, no completion necessary. Video

Here are some achievements of other toon, Yonsi, a 1st life pure rogue toon following the assassin tree, that I used before the challenge, during the proving grounds.

- Level 9: Gwylan's Stand
- Level 11: Claw of Vulkoor

[Spellburst]

I think I should have taken both images including the level of the toon. The misadventure kills are due to mobs moving into traps I had not disabled. Is that ok for the challenge?

By the way, this was done during the "proving grounds" (5th of august of 2017 in this case) before this official thread was opened. If you see the images... yes, it took me 1 hour to complete ;-P

[Spellburst]

Again, not all the images show the level of the toon. Done during the "proving grounds" (29th of august of 2017) before the official thread was opened.

This challenge took me lots of tries before I got it.

[Saekee]

I think I should have taken both images including the level of the toon. The misadventure kills are due to mobs moving into traps I had not disabled. Is that ok for the challenge?

By the way, this was done during the "proving grounds" (5th of august of 2017 in this case) before this official thread was opened. If you see the images... yes, it took me 1 hour to complete ;-P

yes, misadventure are ok in Gwylans and are a nice touch

Again, not all the images show the level of the toon. Done during the "proving grounds" (29th of august of 2017) before the official thread was opened.

This challenge took me lots of tries before I got it.

getting the breakables makes this quest tough! Congratz & thx for sharing again!

[Saekee]

Challenge accepted. I will be adding my quest completions and screenshots as I move forward. Good luck guys!

Stopping the Sahuagin completed

https://i.imgur.com/4QKnQGs.jpg

Stealthy Repossession completed

https://imgur.com/a/HYbcW

great job! I didn’t even see this! Can you also do a new post each time? That way I get alerted too.
I prefer the links on the profile page to go to the later forum links but screenies from elsewhere work too

[bjones0064]

great job! I didn’t even see this! Can you also do a new post each time? That way I get alerted too.
I prefer the links on the profile page to go to the later forum links but screenies from elsewhere work too

I have a question. I seen the crucible was on the list as solo. Does this mean no hires or just live player characters?

[Saekee]

I have a question. I seen the crucible was on the list as solo. Does this mean no hires or just live player characters?

hires are ok— no other live players. I did it with a hire. I will edit it to make it more clear