Change to the shadow cloak

Fantalior · October 3

Hi, as the title suggests, I have questions about the change to the shadow cloak. It is now a switch ability, but what about the tick rate in relation to a nearby enemy revealing itself, so no skills like the mage's light, but pure detection through proximity. According to the old model, a tap on the invisibility button could restore invisibility against NPCs in dungeons, for example, so you could get past guards. Can anyone with PTS installed say whether you are not revealed at all when the ability is active, or whether you just have to press the button twice for the same effect, first to turn off the old/active switch (which was broken) and then the second time to turn it back on?

How does the ability work with the guaranteed critical hits? Does only the first one hit, or as long as the switch is active? Or per tick of the switch?

Greetings, in general it is a bad change in my eyes. The ability was OK and doesn't really need to be reworked.

Trejgon · October 3

According to the old model, a tap on the invisibility button could restore invisibility against NPCs in dungeons, for example, so you could get past guards.

I am not quite sure it is intended behavior even under old system, since revealed debuff's tooltip quite explicitelly states that it prevents you from going undetected or invisible, so clicking shadow cloak while under this effect, should cause cloak to fail. Never tried to do that so cannot confirm for 100% if that is what is happening on live version at the moment being.

How does the ability work with the guaranteed critical hits? Does only the first one hit, or as long as the switch is active? Or per tick of the switch?

Considering the fact that any next hit after going invisible, breaks the invisibility (and under new system toggles off the shadow cloak) I am unsure what distinction you are trying here to make.

Tommy_The_Gun · October 3

From my experience on PTS, toggle cloak is extremely unreliable.

As OP mentioned, there are numerous situations when npcs/mobs will remove invisibility just by "looking at you" & deciding to fight you or even sometimes they will flat out ignore the fact that you are invisible & treat you as if you were not invisible.

On live server the "hot fix" for this is to re-cast cloak one or two times so that the server will register your status as invisible. This issue becomes worse the more laggy the game is and is also present in PvP zones (sometimes even LA or single target skills can break cloak due to that).

With cloak becoming a toggle it is basically 50/50 % chance if it works or not. On "paper", sure it might look like it is smooth & fluid but in practice it just junky as heck. It wilk take time getting used to it as it can work. You can get past enemies without getting spotted, but in a even of being spotted, getting away will be kinda random if it works or not.

The orher issue is "accidental" indirect nerf to Shadow Barrier passive as since last patch NBs can't use their spammable to proc it and cloak also won't be able to proc it reliably (toggle only procs it when it is toggle "on").

As for the guaranteed crit, it works exactly like on live, except there seems to be no 3 second window. So you can toggle cloak on or even off and even after 1h your next direct damage will be guaranteed crit.

DrSlaughtr · October 3

Fantalior wrote: »

Hi, as the title suggests, I have questions about the change to the shadow cloak. It is now a switch ability, but what about the tick rate in relation to a nearby enemy revealing itself, so no skills like the mage's light, but pure detection through proximity. According to the old model, a tap on the invisibility button could restore invisibility against NPCs in dungeons, for example, so you could get past guards. Can anyone with PTS installed say whether you are not revealed at all when the ability is active, or whether you just have to press the button twice for the same effect, first to turn off the old/active switch (which was broken) and then the second time to turn it back on?

How does the ability work with the guaranteed critical hits? Does only the first one hit, or as long as the switch is active? Or per tick of the switch?

Greetings, in general it is a bad change in my eyes. The ability was OK and doesn't really need to be reworked.

I've never had an NPC WITHOUT an active reveal skill break invisibility.

I do think on live you have to be mindful of the timer. You can't wait for exactly 3 seconds because of server latency. Otherwise you risk briefly popping out into stealth which is easy for an NPC to break.