Line of sight isn't working on guards, distance to the point from where they started hunting you is the key.
It also takes a rather long time for them stopping the hunt as the coded animations are pretty long. When your potion runs out before they finished it and you're still too close to the starting point they'll aggro you again, even through walls.

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Also, sometimes when I am still cloaked I see the red dots on the compass and guards and other enemies are still following me, for several seconds.

They'll run to your last known position, throw their Revealing Flare and start their "losing" phase right after.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

That's not how it works. As i said line of sight means nothing to the guards, only distance to the point where they started aggroing you.

Also heat has nothing to do with their crossbow attack (Piercing Bolt). They build up some sort of ultimate over time, if you're too long in a fight with the same guard it fills up eventually and they shot it at you. You can survive it though with enough health.
As a rule of thumb: Don't fight witht the same guard for more than 12 seconds. After 14 seconds you're in immediate danger so make sure to escape in time.

Kisakee wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Also, sometimes when I am still cloaked I see the red dots on the compass and guards and other enemies are still following me, for several seconds.

They'll run to your last known position, throw their Revealing Flare and start their "losing" phase right after.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

That's not how it works. As i said line of sight means nothing to the guards, only distance to the point where they started aggroing you.

Yes that is correct. But as I had said, trees don't hide you from the guards when they toss their flare. Walls and buildings do.

As for the crossbow, it's commulative. If you aggro the same guard multiple times (ie.. repeated failed attempts to pick his/her pocket) they'll just drop you instead of bothering to chase.

Invisibility, line of sight and sprinting is not the way to lose guards. They will track you and match your speed. The best way, is to dodge roll move at a normal run speed and dodge roll again, and repeat. A stamina potion is much more useful then an invisibility potion.

A bonus method. Guards are also afraid of heights, using a dodge roll off a platform will cause them to look for stairs instead of jumping off the platform which can cause them to double back.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

I can escape easily every time too, that is not the point.

The game knows exactly where your character is and just immediately lets the guard pick up on your current position, even if you have gone off in a completely different direction for more than 9-10 seconds for the 3 cloaks I spam back to back. There should be some confusion time (1-3 seconds or so) for the guard to orient on your new position.

EDIT2: actually I am not sure it works this way for guards since I am looking the other way. I usually dodge roll a few times and my movement speed eventually gets me out of range. It does work this way with other enemies in the game, though.

Kisakee wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The game knows exactly where your character is and just immediately lets the guard pick up on your current position, even if you have gone off in a completely different direction for more than 9-10 seconds for the 3 cloaks I spam back to back. There should be some confusion time (1-3 seconds or so) for the guard to orient on your new position.

The most common mistake people do is to not reactivate sneak in an escape situation after getting any invisibility.
Also there's a "feature" where you leave sneak mode after moving for several seconds while being in fight even though you use some sort of invisibility.

Yeah, my character is always in sneak but the guards can negate that. Other enemies cannot.