Stealth Suppression

How can you tell if the use of a power will suppress stealth? Obviously damage powers will. What about team buffs? Debuffs and/or mez? I've looked through both Mids' and Red Tomax, and can't find an entry which indicates if a power breaks stealth.

The specific reason I ask is Mass Hypnosis. Would it be possible to slot it so that it recharges faster than it wears off, stealth up, and spam it repeatedly until everything's asleep before attacking, or do you have to hope that you get everything with the first application, because stealth drops as soon as you use it?

Mass Hypnosis is the power that used on mind/ dominator based MoRSF runs. It doesn't suppress the stealth. I think, "Notify Mobs" = Never field, is what you need to look for in Red Tomax.

An easy thing to do would be to test it yourself. Use the combat attributes to monitor stealth radius while you use powers. See which ones turn it off and which ones don't.

On my stealthy characters I use Combat Stats to see what my current stealth level is.

Rules of thumb on suppression:

* AoE Stealth Aura (Steamy Mists, Arctic Fog, Dark Fall) - Never suppresses

* Improved Invisibility, Stealth, Invisibility, Grant Invisibility - Only defense suppresses, stealth does not, when you attack (a little less sure about this one so someone may need to confirm)

* Super Speed - Stealth suppresses when you attack

* Stealth IO - Stealth suppresses when you attack OR get hit by an attack/take damage. (e.g. those red crystals that do damage in CoT maps will unhide you)


Note that you can still "have" stealth but be attacked. If you use any notifying power on an enemy in a group, all enemies in that group can retaliate even if you are technically still hidden. The stealth/invisibility will still allow you to run past or get near groups that haven't seen you yet though, as long as you don't attack them.

Ah, understood then.

Well, this is a shot in the dark and from memory, but I hope it helps. The character has long since been deleted, but was a Kin/NRG defender with Mass Hypnosis in the epic.

I did not have stealth, but I was able to repeatedly apply Mass Hypno until the whole mob was asleep. I would then be able to FS and Siphon Speed without waking anything up... wait a second... FS again... then Nova.

It was kinda fun.

I know that Recall Friend doesn't break stealth. Neither does some healing moves.

In the specific case of Mass Hypnosis, it is flagged with an "Enemies will not notice this attack" on it, meaning you could spam it all day and never aggro something. Base duration is 15 seconds with a recharge of 45 seconds. With 3 Recharge SO's, you'd be looking at a recharge ~ 22 seconds. Adding sleep enhancements would boost the mez time..so you could get MH with just SO's alone close to, if not perma'd. Hasten would certainly perma in addition to the slots.

Sleep IO could very well perma MH as well, along with IO sets that offer global recharge bonuses.

Of course, whether or not it actually suppresses stealth, i really don't know. Never checked that out. But in the same turn, stuff can't see you when they're asleep anyway...so stealth suppression wouldn't really be a factor. And again...MH doesn't cause aggro...so you could wait it out and reapply to try and get the guys you missed on the first shot, if you wanted.

But...you do bring up an interesting question...and something that could be checked into at some point.

Oh...and MH is ranged...80' to be precise...so you could put mobs to sleep at a safe distance without them seeing you even without stealth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ::looks at RaikenX's signature:: Something funny.

I can confirm that Mass Hypnosis does not suppress stealth. My Mind/Fire dominator uses a stealth IO in Super Speed in order to achieve total invisibility to make finishing tip missions faster. And it isn't just Mass Hypnosis--neither Confuse nor Mass Confusion suppress stealth, either. In other words, if you don't care much about exp, it is entirely possible for an invisible Mind Controller to completely destroy any given spawn with zero risk, given enough time (and assuming you can overcome every individual MOB's confuse protection). It's probably the safest character I have ever played, because even if Mass Confusion is down, I can just single-target confuse every MOB in the group, if I felt like it.

Honestly, sometimes it almost feels like cheating, but then I remember that Mind Control doesn't get a pet like every other control set, so it is a decent trade.