How to "invisible" -any- Pet

Just tested this out on the Public Test Server (minutes before it went down for maintenance!) with my 50 Ninja/TA MM (yes, I'm a glutton for punishment) ... and it works! The important thing here is that this is not something which applies ONLY to Ninjas, but rather is something that can apply to every Pet of every AT in the game. That said, Masterminds will benefit "more" from this trick, simply because they have more Pets ... and for Ninja Masterminds, it is highly thematic (if more cumbersome than absolutely necessary to actually DO).

The "requirements" to pull this off, however, are ... steep. It'll require 1-2 power pools (Teleportation and optionally Concealment) and 3-5 power picks (depending on your Secondary). You will "need" to have:

• Pick two of: Teleport Foe, Recall Friend, Teleport
• Team Teleport (yes, that's right...)
• (optional) Grant Invisibility (for Pets)
• (optional) Stealth or Invisibility as a 5th power (for self)

Those of you who can already see where this is going can skip to the end now.



The "pick 2" choice of Teleport Foe/Recall Friend/Teleport is purely there to be able to unlock Team Teleport, which is the real focus of this entire (madcap?) scheme. That's because as I (and many other people have noticed), the Teleport Stealth IO continues to apply its 120 second stealth radius effect for its full duration, simply because all of the powers it can be slotted into are all Clicks, not Toggles. And in this case, Team Teleport is the *ONLY* Teleport Power in the entire game which will affect Self, Team Alive and Team Dead ... which also includes Pets (since they're on your "team"). This was the core reason why I wanted to copy my MM over to Test this morning ... to see if the +Stealth IO in Team Teleport affected Self Only ... or All Affected Targets. The way that the tooltip info is phrased does not clarify this either way.

Time & Space Manipulation: Stealth
Grants Stealth for 120 seconds after teleporting.

So ... some testing was required ... to determine if the Stealth IO would affect Self Only or not.

And sure enough, once I'd bought one of these on Live, copied my MM over to Test, burned a respec on Test so as to pick up Team Teleport, slotted it with the Teleport Stealth IO, and added Grant Invisibility and Stealth to my powers (because Trick Arrow doesn't help me "enough" in this respect) ... it was time to test against some +0 Hostiles. Fortunately, there were "plenty" around the Grandville: North flyer zone point up at The Fab.

• I toggled on Stealth for myself.
• I summoned all my Ninjas, but did not Train them at all (to keep the aggro detection test clean)
• I cast Grant Invisibility on each of my Ninjas (one by one)
• Once Grant Invis was applied to all of my Ninjas, I performed a Team Teleport "in place"

I was mildly disappointed to discover that my Ninjas didn't "fade out" (more) from the stacked Concealment effects on them like I'd been expecting. To my untrained eye, the transparency seemed to be no greater than that applied by the Grant Invisibility alone.

Still ... nothing ventured ... so the next step in testing was to Team Teleport myself and my Pile'o'Ninjas(tm) right on top of some of the +0 Arachnos Zone Mobs up around the North Flyer in Grandville. Would they aggro on my (not so) Stealthy Ninjas when we all "got friendly" around the Hostiles? Only one way to find out ...

BAMF!

[...]

<.<

[...]

>.>

[...]



No reaction from the Hostile Mobs to our presence in Melee Range ...

... which means ... SUCCESS!!!

I even dragged my Ninjas (on Follow) around to other groups of Arachnos Mobs, just to be sure and validate my test. No reactions from any of the Hostiles. After that, I Team Teleported back to the Flyer (to log out, since the server was due to go into maintenance at any time) ... this time paying very careful attention to the Pet Buffs icons, as well as the Buff icons on my MM. Sure enough, I noted on my MM that when I used Team Teleport, the Team Teleport buff appeared on myself and my Pets, as expected. There was however, no "extra" icon denoting that the Stealth IO Proc had been applied to myself in the UI.



Practical Applications

It should be noted, first and foremost, that this particular little "trick" of stacking Stealth from a Unique IO and another source is limited to neither Team Teleport, nor Grant Invisibility+Stealth. Group Fly, for example, could no doubt perform the same (power) stunt, as could Group Energy Flight for Peacebringers, in lieu of Team Teleport. Likewise ... Shadow Fall (Dark Miasma) and Steamy Mist (Storm Summoning) are able to apply Team Stealth effects via PBAoE Toggle powers, and Flash Arrow (Trick Arrow) can supply a complimentary Perception Debuff that achieves the same (net) effect as Grant Invisibility, albeit as a Debuff via an attack, rather than as a Buff via an aura. There are also Click Team Stealth powers such as Improved Invisibility in Illusion Control that can assist here, too. So there are more ways than merely one to flay a beloved household pet here.

That said ... I strongly suspect that of the choices between a Group Fly and a Team Teleport ... the latter is often going to be preferred. My reason for thinking that is that because Group Fly (whether Pool or Peacebringer) is a Toggle, meaning that whenever someone (or some Pet) falls out of the radius, they immediately become (more) visible, which makes "keeping everyone together" more of an exercise in Herding Cats than most players are willing to deal with. Furthermore, Group Fly powers tend to be "expensive" Toggles to run, with endurance costs of 2 END/s for the Pool version, or only 0.52 END/s for the Peacebringer Group Energy Fly (which for this sort of thing, is practically a bargain!).

So there are "logistical issues" with doing this via Group Fly. It can be done, but it's going to be less of a "set and forget" sort of interaction of the powers to achieve the desired effect.

On the flipside ... Team Teleport has its own issues too. Pets have a nasty habit of wanting to fall out of the sky *instantly* upon arrival, rather than hovering for 4 seconds before falling to the ground. This can have important implications for using Team Teleport in lieu of (Self) Teleport as your primary Travel Power (if having your Pets fall out of the sky is a problem for you, rather than an added Giggle Factor). If relying on an Team Teleport for Travel, this will mean "needing" to stay close(ish) to the ground and avoiding teleporting away from the vicinity of hostile Mobs. That's because the Stealth IO, when *any* Teleport power is cast, dispels and recasts itself, creating a short window of "suppressed" Stealthiness ... during which you (and your Pets?) can be detected, and attacked (which has implications for Pet response aggro when in Bodyguard Mode). Still, even with those limitations, it will often be easier to manage logistics with Team Teleport (especially within close quarters indoor maps, like 5th/Council Bases and Blue Caves) than Group Fly. Even better yet, the Stealth IO Proc is persistent for 120 seconds, even if attacked. If you're attacked (or you attack), the Stealth IO Proc simply suppresses for 10 (or is it 15?) seconds beyond Combat, and then re-asserts itself if the 120 second duration has not yet expired.

Downsides to this whole setup are, of course, if using Grant Invisibility (because your Secondary is "no help" with Stealth), needing to cast it on each and every single Pet you have. Unfortunately, Grant Invisibility is *NOT* one of the powers that's getting shifted over to being a Target AoE Buff, like the bubble powers of Force Field, Sonic Resonance, etc. are in the Quality of Life update coming in Issue 20.5. That means needing to cast it 5 times just to cover your own Pets ... which at a whopping 15.6 END per cast (unenhanced), is not exactly something you want to just "do" on a lark. Fortunately, Grant Invisibility also lasts 120 seconds, the same as the Stealth IO Proc, so at least there's some symmetry there. But still, that Endurance Cost is pretty darn steep per casting, so it'll definitely "pay" to get some Endurance Reduction into Grant Invis if you can swing it. Without any reduction to endurance or recharge times, you're looking at 78 END over 20.85 seconds (3.74 END/s!) just to cover your own 5 Pets ... during which the 120 second Stealth IO duration is either running, or hasn't started yet.



Still ... you work with what you've got available to you, if you want to be able to "ninja" missions like a Stalker can (and does) while bringing your Pets with you ... and not drawing the aggro of the entire map upon yourself, just because you EXIST. The downside to all of this is that it takes a lot of Power Picks (at least three), 1 or 2 Pools (two if you don't have a Team Stealth power in your Secondary), and there are logistical issues with managing all your Pets. Dark and Storm MMs will have a (much!) easier time of it with their PBAoE Stealth Toggles, since they won't have to reach for the Concealment Pool to compliment their (Stealthy) Team Teleport/Group Fly to stack enough Stealth Radius on their Pets so as to make them "invisible" to all Mobs that do not aggro through Stealth.

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From what I know about IOs, the teleport stealth should not be applying to the pets. IO procs like this generally target the caster, as can be seen in the data entry. It also *affects* teammates, but they aren't the caster.

The reason the trick is working isn't that the stealth proc is affecting the ninjas, it's that grant invisibility doesn't give your ninjas *stealth*, it gives them *full invisibility*. Checking out the concealment pool, note that stealth lists '+35 StealthRadius', while invisibility and grant invisibility both list '+55 StealthRadius'. As the wiki notes, maximum PvE perception is 54 feet for regular foes, so the +55 stealth is enough for complete invisibility against anything that doesn't have some sort of bonus. You yourself have regular stealth (+35) and the proc (+30), so you are also invisible. Your ninjas shouldn't have the proc but with grant invis they're at +55 stealth, so they're invisible anyway - so all you need for stealthing things with pets out is just plain old grant invisibility.

Sorry to rain on the parade.

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@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.

This is what it means to be a tank!

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Actually, the toggles were fixed to turn off the proc when you turned off the toggle.

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Cool.

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Darn! And here I thought I'd found something cool.

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Has anyone tested this with traps? For example, does the teleport also tp you acid mortar around with you? I have noticed that the acid mortar will come with me through an ouro portal, but have never tested it with team tp. (Nevermind. Just got the answer from a different source. Figures.)

Also, as an aside, is there any reason why you can't grant invis to the force field generator?

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No you can stealth FFG like any pet.

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Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.

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Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.

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+2 to 4 IDF mobs will probably see straight through Grant Invis unless you stay well back.

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OK then the only thing I can see is if the Battle Orb's are considered turrets then they have perception 100. If that's not the case then it should work .

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Be nice if Grant Invis got the aoe buff - it didn't, right?

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Guides: Dark Armor and IOs | SS/DA | Crabbing | Fortunata

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