Moving this over from another thread.

So my issue with Rising Mists the way it currently functions is that it is cast on the room, which causes me not to use it in PVP situations because there's no point in buffing other people's stealth besides my own if I'm facing against them.

I'm curious why RM is designed like this. Spells like Shadows and Eyes of The Blind are on the caster only, making them more viable than RM in PVP combat situations.

For PVE, the spell functions fine.

I would like to see an option to cast this on SELF or AREA.

Xionara Swiftstrike

They might see the mist, but not me. Similar to when you know there's someone that just hid in the room with you and you start searching for them because you know they're there but you can't see them.

Xionara Swiftstrike

I agree. Book it!

I generally, it seems a lot like how a Warrior Mage stealth buff would work. We aren't subtle weavers of illusion, magic-wise. Our spells tend to being flashy and brute force. And what's a flashier more brute face to get a bit more stealth than just going 'Welp, gonna flood this entire room in fog?!' Stealth in general is just one of those things the guild is bad and it's a kinda neat way to somewhat bypass it if you're willing to pay the price.

>I wouldn't be able to move up hunting ladders and continue to use stealth without RM, so I thank you.

Would misdirection work as well, for you? It's still elemental.

>>Would misdirection work as well, for you? It's still elemental.

Rising Mists is a far better stealth buff for PvE than Misdirection.

>>What makes you say this? They both provide the same SoI based stealth buff that can be seen using EXP MODS

Actually, no it doesn't. RM uses custom mechanics since it is a room based buff that is stackable with other self cast stealth buffs. This is going from pure memory but I'm pretty sure it was said by a GM a few years back that RM actually gives a better stealth buff than if a WM used a self cast buff (like Misdirection) because of the special mechanics of the spell doesn't conform to SoI.

Mechanics aside the debuff of Misdirection is only useful for 1-2 hides (if you do them back-to-back) and the duration of the stealth buff is incredibly short. In a PvE setting you only have to cast RM once to lock stealth while Misdirection has to be cast multiple times unless you can cast it close to cap, and even then 10 minutes is a fairly short duration to lock stealth in. After training stealth at level on both guilds and using both spells up to ~400+ in magics I would choose RM over Misdirection for PvE every time. Misdirection is better suited for PvP with it's perception debuff and short duration stealth buff.

If you cannot lock stealth in 10 minutes at-level you are training it the wrong way. Even as a survival prime only using AMBUSH, it's very easy to lock if I'm hunting the right thing.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

<<that is stackable with other self cast stealth buffs.

>>I find this statement highly suspect.

That information came straight from a GM (Raesh I believe since he was working on Bards at the time and this conversation took place in that folder IIRC). Believe it or don't, but from what I have seen it seems right.


>> Even if it doesn't obey SoI, which I could possibly see being the case, it would still be subject to caps so at best it would be a 20% boost instead of a 15% boost.

This is better than a Bard or WM could achieve with Misdirection which backs up my statement.


>>It lasts up to 10 minutes. That's considerably more than one or two hides, even at the bare minimum duration of 2 minutes.

You misread what I wrote. Let me repeat that for you.

<<Mechanics aside the debuff of Misdirection is only useful for 1-2 hides (if you do them back-to-back) and the duration of the stealth buff is incredibly short.

Which means using the fact that it has a perception debuff as a selling point for the spell in PvE is pointless, because the debuff is pointless when you are talking about the time it takes to lock a skill. The amount of times you would have to cast it to maintain that debuff would increase the time it takes to lock stealth by more than it would be worth for the very small gain that the debuff would give you.


>>(Also, if one is only casting 2 minute Misdirections then one is only casting 10 minute rising mists. Both are 'incredibly short' by your definition at that point.)

It is relative. Starting at 10 minutes and growing to 40 is much more desirable in PvE than starting at 2 and only growing to 10. Misdirection can only give you, at best, the minimum that RM can give you in duration. When both spells are cast at the same ranks RM will always give you a much longer duration. Again that just proves my point about it being better for PvE.


>>And even if you can't lock stealth in ten minutes and/or have to cast it a couple of times... so? It's not a worse spell because of it.

If you are at all worried about efficiency (time to lock) then yes it does make it a worse spell for PvE, and that is not taking mechanics into count.


>>If you cannot lock stealth in 10 minutes at-level you are training it the wrong way. Even as a survival prime only using AMBUSH, it's very easy to lock if I'm hunting the right thing.

That 10 minute duration comes at ~700+ ranks in magic. It starts at 2 minutes so right out of the gate you are having to cast it 4-5 times to lock stealth, and that's at the worst ranks. IIRC it was you that complained in another thread recently that the first 100 or so ranks of stealth were a pain to train, and having to recast a spell more than once while training it just compounds that problem. That is why RM is a better PvE spell than Misdirection.

I really curious about how RM would be useful in both situations. In a PVP situation, where sometimes multiple characters you don't know are coming will jump you, I would never cast RM, because I would never want to hinder my perception in order to give my stealth a bonus. I wouldn't use stealth in PVP because it has a slow learning rate and will most likely be useless in the majority of combat situations there.

My suggestion to make it a self cast also is to make it useful in a PVP situation really. In PVE it functions fantastic and of course I am glad to have it. If we weren't able to train stealth as warrior mages it wouldn't be a concern. But since we can, I am simply saying I think this spell could be more useful if it had the ability to also be self cast. I might not use it in PVP anyway, but it would be a consideration, instead of an immediate absolutely not.

Anyway, it being a legacy spell I'm guessing it won't be worked on further? so thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts on it. :)

Xionara Swiftstrike

Just because something is tert doesn't mean its not viable in pvp. It will be hard to use it against anybody but other terts in pvp, but that has a lot to do with the fact that stealth vs perception is already skewed quite far in favor of perception. You already have to basically outclass somebody by a bit to be able to succeed when watch comes into play.

Yeah when I say bit I meant quite a bit. I've searched out 200 ranks or more without to much trouble. Maybe taking armor totally off would help but this was with all light armor sitting at like 2/14 to 3/14.

Its hard for me to understand why folks complain about stealth still. I'm assuming because they get backstabbed most of the time. Though you could search a thief out every time and still get backstabbed. Backstab contests more than just perception, a lot of people probably just fail the check vs the actual skill, and the fact that its buffed, able to ignore armor for a short period of time and able to be used with pulsing inviso. Which i'm not saying is a problem by the way, because its made to work like this. If it didn't work this way, than thieves would be dead in the water with he sad state of actual stealth via hiding.

Stealth in general is extremely lackluster if you aren't a Thief right now. This is even more true if you are tert. Really the only reason you'd want to train it at that point is for the TDPs and scaring newbies.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs