Just another Sneak thread

[Ammellisan]

ok first off let me start by saying i REALLY want to love this game. But im struggling, immensely

I really wanted to play a sort of 'rogue\sneak\duelist' kinda thing (no, not sneak archer).
But I find myself having to basically dodge circles around mobs while getting 1 or 2 hits in to even manage anything remotely close to this playstyle.

Sneaking seems to do nothing, I got 50 in sneak skill, all 3 'reduce noise' traits and im in light armor. I sneak up on a peasant and he sees me, in the dark, with his back turned to me, easily.
Parrying with daggers (i have not tried other weapons) seems nigh impossible, even on a succesful parry they take 0% stamina damage whereas i take tons and at the same time the parry doesnt even stagger or interrupt them, their second hit casually goes through.

So ignoring all the 'git gud' comments that are to follow, I'm curious, should i get rid of my illusions and just go mage since it makes things 'easy' apparently?
or is there something i am misunderstanding entirely?

Any advice appreciated

[mickeimouss]

I don't know for stealth. I dropped the idea very soon. But I play with a dual wielding high crit build and having a blast.

[mickeimouss]

I've put some magic in it, mostly summons, and it's not bad.

[icleus]

Walking slow makes a difference. Default holding caps lock button as bizarre as that is.
Daggers are rough without skills set in them. Double smuggler daggers give 20gp per kill which adds up. Better using a main backup to do more damage until daggers are able to do more damage with the faster hits.
A part of this game is experimenting with weapons and play-styles before committing skills. You can also use potions to respec your stats or reload to test things out.

[Midnight]

For combat purposes daggers have entire skill tree path focused on building status. Which is quite good in this game.

That said dagger is just a terrible weapon. Their short range leads to all sorts of hitbox issues and they feel the floatiest among all of the weapon types. Most people starting out with a dagger massively contributes to the bad feel of the early combat imo.

So just keep it for sneak attacks and use a sword or spear as your main weapon for open combat. It will work much better.

[PocketYoda]

Personally stealth is great when it works, i think you must use a dagger, stealth seems to do nothing with anything else, and actually getting close to anything at low levels is really hard if not impossible.

Even bows fail miserably a lot stealthed.

[cobber888]

obviously get the skill that puts you in stealth when you take fatal damage, best skill in game

[tensai.industries]

It requires a decent amount of Dex it seems to get your Noise level low enough. Also some gear tailored for this in the game

At least if you are trying to get in to melee range ><

I can use it kinda effectively with spells at midrange

[Ammellisan]

hmm, thx for the comments\opinions, i'll change a few things and try it again and otherwise switch to something 'better' for the time being

[[TGC] MadGod]

The fact that you got 50 sneak and all skillsets and still get spotted makes me wonder...the mobs spotting my necro immedately (sneak ~40, no sneak skills) are mostly archers and bandits. And not consistently either. Once I am close enough, I nearly oneshot them. And i am naturally not concentrating on that playstyle...

Enemy undead rarely if ever spot me...i guess it is all mob dependent in the end. Never managed to sneak up to a redcap in act 1 ...

[Vampyr]

Originally posted by PocketYoda:

Personally stealth is great when it works, i think you must use a dagger, stealth seems to do nothing with anything else, and actually getting close to anything at low levels is really hard if not impossible.

Even bows fail miserably a lot stealthed.

Even bows fail at stealth..idk what kind of drugs you are on but I want some. I am a stealth archer and I one shot nearly everything without headshots. Only need to do headshots for higher health creatures like the ogres or bears. And if you kill something that is near another creature they will investigate that body if you want to not get noticed don't shoot at them again and back up a bit the ai is at least smart enough to look in the direction that its ally got killed from. The only exceptions I've seen to this are creatures like the drowners and redcaps.

On another note are you guys trying to stealth during the day? I literally almost only fight at night mostly for the extra loot but its pretty easy to stealth at night.

[Alenfal]

If you have points invested in one-handed damage, I would cull out what you can through stealth then dash attack the remaining enemies. Even with daggers, you'd deal heavy damage while dashing through a mob.

Initially, I wanted to just stick with daggers but then received the sword from Fingerless Colm. I respec'd to use it in conjunction with daggers, and can one-hit most Act 1 enemies through melee-ranged stealth, getting to them at that point was just a matter of rushing.

Edit: Stat screen, I'm able to sneak up to most enemies and get, maybe a 2-3 second time window, to perform a sneak attack.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488182741

[OddyTurner]

Without giving spoilers away. I have started running 3 different characters. I started with a two handed build and am loving the absolute domination of that build (lvl 29). As i was playing though I found a lot of "sneak/stealth" gear around and decided to try that. Also after beating 2 different foes with my brute and getting their gear, it made me want to try a sword and board build. both the stealth and sword and board build are still low level (sub 10 I believe) and the stealth is rough!!!!

Stealth has a few issues. First, it is painfully weak starting off. With some of the gear I have found in my main play through, I can see it being really powerful, if you can get the gear and can have the right situation. The problem is, getting to the gear and then of course all the situations are bad in this game. I love this game so far, the combat is so much fun, but I don't think stealth/sneak are going to work in it. Certain areas trigger mobs of enemies and you lose your stealth immediately. Versus bosses your sneak is going to be completely worthless.

Best bet, is build a dual melee or archer build. Focus on dual wielding points and strength/endurance . . . or for the archer focus on dex and enduance along with the bow/archer tree. As you progress through the game, start throwing points into stealth once you have free points to use. Basically, stealth will be a situation for you, not a main play style. At least this is how I'm going to approach it once I go back to my "stealth" build. I'm going to re-roll the points and focus only on one style and without sneak until I progress.

At first I was going to try a Dual wield melee sneak build mixed with a sneak archer, but you would spread your points all over the place early on (4 different areas), which would lead to you taking a long time to get the build going. and again, in boss fights, the sneak goes right out the window

Spoiler is about gear you find.

I have definitely found more gear/weapons leaning towards amazing dual wield builds than I have amazing archer builds.

[Arisu]

I have no issue sneaking up on single enemies. But I do notice that anyone else looking in your general direction will rather easily see you and alert everyone.

As for parrying, there's 2 things of note. The first is that parrying isn't just "blocking right on time". That's a mistake I made initially. Parrying is very specifically tapping the block button. The animation will look different and it will drain some stamina from you even when you're not being attacked. So you can check this out of combat. The second is that the timing window is very strict at the start. But the first skill in the parry tree will increase it quite a bit (by 0.1 second per point to be exact). Supposedly leveling the block skill increases this window too, but I don't know exactly how much. There are also some items that increase the parry window.

[EDIT]
There's also a shrine thingie in act 1 (I believe a shrine of the wolf or something). Which when activated gives a boost (permanent as far as I know) to sneak attacks.

[Ammellisan]

very helpful stuff all, thank you! :D

[Arbadacarba]

Sneaky archer, can clear a dozen bandits if I take it slow, you need to move quickly out of sight after a kill, of course that’s a lot harder when in melee.
As long as your sneak thing doesn’t say “Detected” they haven’t spotted you yet, just looking and alerted.