Stealth

“ We head to the Erisian Village to become acquainted with the STEALTH. Unfortunately for the Bandits, it's completely optional ”

― A basic description of a fairly useless stat.

Vesperian crouched, increasing their stealth

Stealth is a Mechanic that allows the player to stay hidden from people.

NPCs and monsters alike have a cone of vision in which they can spot the player, resulting in them attacking. Improving stealth makes that cone smaller, reducing from how far player can be seen.

Modifications

Stealth can be improved in several ways.

• Crouching.
• Improving your Agility will improve your Stealth.
  • Every point of Agility grants +0.2% Stealth.
  • Passive Agility does not grant Stealth.
• The Felinor aspect starts with 20% Stealth and has a 1.2x multiplier on Stealth gain.
• The Lowstride Talent improves Stealth while crouched.
• Equipping specific Outfits:
  • Darkened Bastion, Familiar Assassin's Armor, Inquisition Light, Navaen Nomad Robes, Navaen War Chief, and Whaler Coat all grant +50% Stealth.
  • Grand Pathfinder Cloak grants +40% Stealth.
  • Whaler Initiate grants 25% Stealth.
  • Some Outfits have the Lowstride Talent:
    • Authority Peacekeeper Armor, Diver Journeyman Robes, Hive Adjudicator, Hive Drone, Pathfinder Sorcerer, Pathfinder Thaumaturge, Shadow Hunter, and Steel Plate
• Wearing the following Equipment:
  • Head: Dark Owl Chapeau (10%), Bloodfeather Cowl (6%), Bloodcurdle Cowl (6%), Assassin's Hood (all variants) (5%), Rogue Assassin's Hood (5%), Monastery Cowl (5%), Hallowed Monastery Cowl (5%), Dark Cowl (4%), Black Hood (4%), Brown Hood (2%)
  • Arms: Dark Owl Cloak (6%), Mercenary's Garb (6%), Bounty Hunter's Garb (6%), Ministry Operative Cloak (6%), Sandrunner Wraps (4%), Assassin's Cloak (all variants) (3%)
  • Legs: N/A
  • Torso: Shrouded Capes (all variants) (5%), Dark Owl Cape (2%)
  • Face: Duelist's Mask (6%), Corrupted Duelist's Mask (6%)
  • Earrings: Master Thief Earrings (3%), Assassin's Earrings (3%)
  • Rings: N/A
  • Some Equipment items have the Lowstride Talent:
    • Assassin's Cloak (all variants), Hive Scourge Cuirass

On the other hand, the Obvious Flaw grants you -20% base Stealth, but has no effect on Stealth gain.

The current maximum Stealth possible, not counting crouching/Lowstride, is:

• Felinor - 140.72%.
• Felinor with Multifaceted - 140%.
• Any +3 Agility Aspect (Kiron/Tiran) - 100.6%.
• Any +2 Agility Aspect (Etrean/Chrysid/Khan/Lightborn/Drakkard) - 100.4%.
• Any other Aspect or any Aspect (excluding Felinor) with the Multifaceted Echo Upgrade - 100%.

All of these of course use the best equipment with 100 or more Agility. If you have Obvious, subtract 20 from the above scores or 24 if Felinor.

Usage

General

Against NPCs, Stealth affects the range where they can detect you. The higher your Stealth, the closer you have to be for them to detect you and vice versa.

Against players, Stealth is suboptimal if your opponent has a functional monitor. However, if you have the Fatal Stealth Talent, you will gain increased damage when hitting your opponent's back based on the amount of Stealth you have, though this is restricted to Stealth gained from equipment sources only.

Crouching

Crouching is activated by pressing Ctrl.

When crouched:

• Parkour is restricted and Stealth is increased.
• Players can assassinate other humanoids by pressing M1 behind them while crouched. You must be out of combat to assassinate unless you have the Dustlunge Talent.
  • It is important to not hold the crouch key, as this may perform an uppercut instead.
  • Against players, assassinations deal a percentage of their maximum health as damage. Initially starting at 15%, you gain 0.1% assassination damage per point in Agility, capping at 25% with 100 Agility.
  • Against humanoid NPCs, assassinations deal large damage, though you can increase the damage further with the Deep Wound Talent.
  • Some NPCs such as the Songseekers at Songseeker Wilds or the Ministry Necromancers at Minityrsa are immune to assassinations, along with all non-humanoid Monsters such as Megalodaunts.
• Players can activate Murmur: Tacet, a Murmur that turns the player invisible in Stealth.
  • Tacet has a range, or a bubble, where the player is visible to all other players who are also inside the bubble. The range of this bubble scales inversely with both Power and Stealth.
  • The size of the Tacet bubble caps at 100% Stealth; going above 100% Stealth causes the size to increase instead, due to a bug.
• Players can activate Murmur: Rhythm, a Murmur that pinpoints the locations of nearby entities and highlights how much current health they have compared to their maximum health by making them "pulse".

When an NPC detects you or an different NPC they are enemies with, a dark yellow "!" will appear above their head. Enemies who are alert are unable to be assassinated.

An alert bandit

Trivia

• There's a very small chance the Metal Gear Solid alert sound effect will play when enemies notice you.