Someone told me that silent strike had been essentially replaced by vanish, so I learned that skill. I just recently reviewed the two, and they aren't the same at all. Vanish takes place after the attack, which is visible, but more to the point, it's success depends on the armor group you are wearing. And the stamina cost can get quite expensive. Silent strike appears to have no such armor-based component; also it has 5 ranks available as opposed to three for vanish. Would 5 ranks of silent strike give you a better success rate? On the other hand, vanish would be useful in cases where I am hit with a spell or maneuver (e-wave, for example) that puts me into RT. Here's what I have now as well as the information on the two skills:

>cman info
Guennwhfar, your Combat Maneuver training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Shadow Mastery smastery 5
Surge of Strength surge 1
Divert divert 3
Vanish vanish 3

Available Combat Maneuver Training Points: 4

cman help vanish
Skill Name: Vanish
Mnemonic: vanish
Hostile: No
Stamina Cost: Base 25. If currently in roundtime (RT), an additional penalty of 1 stamina point per second of RT remaining is applied (per 2 seconds of RT if Shadow Mastery is active). The stamina cost for this skill is capped at 75.
Other Requirements: Training in Stalking and Hiding is recommended.
Available to: Rogues.
Prerequisites:
Shadow Mastery (at rank 4)
CMP Cost:
Rank 1: (Squares) 4
Rank 2: (Squares) 8
Rank 3: (Squares) 12
Description: You immediately attempt to hide without roundtime (RT). This hasty attempt comes with a penalty to the hide check of 10*(3 - Ranks) + 15*(Armor Group - 1). At higher ranks, Vanish may be attempted in RT:
Rank 2: Can Vanish while in 5 seconds or less of RT.
Rank 3: Can Vanish while in any amount of RT.

>cman help silent
Skill Name: Silent Strike
Mnemonic: silentstrike
Hostile: Yes
Stamina Cost: Base 20 (-8 Rank 1, -6 Rank 2, -4 Rank 3)
Other Requirements: Training in Ambush and Stalking and Hiding is recommended.
Available to: Rogues.
Prerequisites:
Shadow Mastery (at rank 2)
CMP Cost:
Rank 1: (Squares) 2
Rank 2: (Squares) 4
Rank 3: (Squares) 6
Rank 4: (Squares) 8
Rank 5: (Squares) 10
Description: Attempt to attack from hiding without revealing one's location.

I'm thinking maybe I might drop vanish to 2 ranks and start training in silent strike? On the other hand, there are other Cman skills I might want to train in. Perhaps train more in S&H so I am not sniffed out as much? (I'm already 2.5x though). Any recommendations?



"For the female of the species
is more deadly than the male."

>>Vanish is a rogue's greatest superpower. Unless you wear plate armor.<<

Right now I'm in brig; am considering going to double chain, which is the next cut off point for MM reduction with the UAC.

>>Silent strike isn't worth it under any circumstances.<<

Reasoning for this conclusion? It certainly sounds useful. Is the failure rate high?

The Bells of Hell
go ding-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

>>Its unaimed.<<

Do you mean that you can't target a specific body part when attacking from hiding via silent strike? If that's the case, then the skill is in fact pretty useless to me. Aimed head shots are my bread and butter. OK, I'm crossing that one off the list.

>>At the moment I am turning dodge into hiding and ambush ranks, because I can tell I am too low in them, but I am not sure just how high I need to get. (target is 2x hiding, 1.5x ambush at the moment)<<

Depends on what you are hunting. Some things seem almost totally unperceptive, others are almost impossible to hide against. At 50 trains, I have 2.5x in S&H, and 2x ambush. I still miss smaller body parts a fair amount of the time. Animals and non-corporeal undead seem hardest to hide against; I can partially offset this by hiding in a different (empty of critters) room, putting up shadow mastery, and re-entering and getting off an attack before they have a chance to search. I also like dodge; a lot of times even caught in the open I'll avoid getting hit by a swing by ducking it.

Unfortunately, all this takes up a lot of TPs; I only have 2 spells so far. I'll be lucky to get self-cast lores by 80 trainings. Right now I am using imbeds when I need them, which is, unfortunately, less effective. But, combat effectiveness is a higher priority for me than locksmithing ability. If I can open my own boxes, I'm happy.

>>Right now I'm in brig; am considering going to double chain, which is the next cut off point for MM reduction with the UAC. <<

I wear brig (in Plat) and find all the light armor maneuvers well worth it.

>>Reasoning for this conclusion? It certainly sounds useful. Is the failure rate high? <<

Any situation where silent strike might be useful, a kill blow will be usefuller.

Silent strike is 30 CMPs invested in the ability to attack from hiding, unaimed, and rehide automatically -- unless you fail to rehide of course. Upside: works if you wear heavy armor. Downside: expensive and pointless. What is this for? The cool factor? Fine. It's definitely cool. The messaging is cool. Is it to hit something hard so it's disabled? If you are hunting something stunable, and want a nice way to stun it, just attack it. Or sweep it. What else… maybe you want to disable one stunable creature in a swarm, and return to hiding? And then what?

There's no strategy here. Silent strike is a legacy maneuver. Dude it out in the open or trade down to some leather armor and learn the power of the stealth build. I can't even tell you how powerful and useful Vanish is. And divert. OTF rescue? Divert the constructs away from the corpse. Nelemar rescue child task? Divert everything out of the room except the creature your child is hiding from. Sentry bounty? Kill from hiding and vanish in the same macro, so you are never seen or able to be cast at. Rinse repeat until the thing is dead. And on and on…

Or give that all up for less than 20 TD and an ability to take damage you won't need if you hunt right.

-E