Stealthy ranged characters

There's a part of my brain that has this real fascination with stealthing. I prefer ranged to melee action, so stalkers are low on my priority list. But I'm intermittently tallying my other options, and would appreciate y'all pointing out all the ones I'm missing.

- Illusion controllers. I'm given to understand superior invisibility is about the best in breed, too. I just have trouble finding a secondary I'm really happy with.

- Fortunatas.

- Devices blasters. I seem to recall reading that the cloaking device is neither all that nor a bag of chips when it comes to stealth, but I can't seem to find that info now. (I freely admit to not really understanding what this feet thing is in stealth ratings.)

- Dark miasma whatevers. See above about stealth ratings, though.

- Anything with stealth IOs, of course.

What am I missing in the way of power sets? And how do they compare in terms of just how stealthy they are

bane spiders can be ranged, but they miss out on the damage bonus from melee attacks striking from stealth. So they would be a bit gimped

Second the Devices Blaster. With Cloaking Device and Smoke Grenade (I accidentally typed Cloking Grenade first), you can stand on top of spawns to drop a Trip Mine without them noticing you. If that's not stealthy, nothing is.

*laugh* Okay, sounds like a thing for me to dabble with. Thanks.

This is a good read if you want to know about stealth and perception.

One distinction worth making is suppressed versus unsuppressed stealth. Suppressed stealth powers lose some or all of their stealth component when you attack or receive an attack. Unsuppressed stealth powers do not. So with an unsuppressed stealth power you can attack one group while standing near another group and not get aggro from the group you're not attacking. With suppressed stealth as soon as you attacked you'd become visible and the second group would attack you.

Exactly how much you value unsuppressed versus suppressed stealth is up to you. I am a huge fan of non-suppressing stealth powers, to the point that I have to have a very good reason to pick a set that doesn't have such a power.

Some non-suppressing stealth powers: Dark Miasma/Shadow Fall; Cold Domination/Arctic Fog; Storm Summoning/Steamy Mist; Illusion Control/Superior Invisibility.

A couple gotchas with non-suppressing stealth powers: They still suppress upon clicking a glowie, and they also become inactive if you get mezzed. So fighting near a group you don't want to engage is risky if there's a mezzer in the group you are fighting.

Ah ha! That's the info I needed! Thank you very much.

I'll third the Dev Blaster. Arch/Dev is both stealthy and deadly accurate. As for Illusion, I've paired it with Kinetics and it plays rather like a ranged Stalker.

As said above, bane spiders and device blasters. Maybe illusion controllers too.

I have go to against people saying /Device is a great range specialist. Why?

Two powers require pbaoe range or setup before the fight starts.

Taser only has 20' range. And what's more importantly you don't get Build Up. If you are not using melee attacks to increase your dps output, then losing Build Up will hurt even more. /Device, however has a great tool in caltrops to keep foes away from you but that also draws more aggro to yourself.

You really only need one +stealth in Hover and your Blaster will be stealthy enough.

A question about the Stealth procs: do I have to toggle a power off and back on every two minutes to get the benefits? Or does it renew or last or anything like that?

My stealth ranged toon was my TA/Archery defender. Since he stays airborne the entire time i'm playing him, +stealth IO in hover. That alone could get him in close enough to mobs without being seen. If i (for whatever god forsaken reason) i needed to get closer....Flash Arrow. Effectively invisible at that point.

EDIT: Since i don't wanna double post...in reference to Bosstone's comment, i'm pretty sure a few issues back, they "fixed" that so that +stealth IO's that are set in toggles turn off when the power is detoggled now. It no longer has the 120 duration afterwards, only as long as the toggle is on. Only the clickie powers, ie Teleport have the 120 second duration.

Quote:

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

Following up on the "Bane Spiders" idea, going a Huntsman path on an Arachnos Soldier, using the initial primary powers but the Bane Spider secondary powers would be very effective.

SOA or a WS.

Try a Huntsman build SoA. You basically take all of the basic gun attacks from the default Soldier set and then add in Cloak and Bane Spider Armor from the Bane tree. You can also grab Call Reinforcements if you want pets or Surveilance, and if you don't mind pulling out a mace for a second Build Up is nice. You'll have a much tougher character than an AR/Devices Blaster at the cost of a bit of damage, and you'll add a lot of team utility thanks to the SoA leadership skills.

Hmm. I've got a 40-ish SoA I haven't known what to do with, quite. I'll give that a respec try.

I say fort. Not only do you have stealth, you get high def to all positions (mine is in the 50s with mind link on), mez and kb protection, a crashless nuke, and a confuse power that give total confusion a run for its money. Not to mention scaling res like sr, and leadership. I just wish forts got mental training.