Uses for invisibility?

[noxnoctum]

I've been wanting to try a diffirent kind of build for shadowblade lately, just to try something other than a speed centric build (which I was doing great with and was about to see the far east for the first time when the game got bugged so I had to restart ), and was just wondering about the uses for invisibility. Is it viable as something to use on the offense and not just as an escape mechanism? Obviously your damage is reduced a lot but if they're can't even hit you at all it'd be worth it.

[noxnoctum]

Slightly dif question, are there any enemies with 100% always see invisibility?

[Dekar]

I can only tell you that there is a new Prodigy that halves the damage penalty for invisiblity among other things.

[Frumple]

Slightly dif question, are there any enemies with 100% always see invisibility?

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is, functionally, yes. Long story short, while nothing just gets a flat "I can see you now." (that I'm aware of, anyway -- there might be telepathy enabled critters or whatever, but so far as I know nothing has something like "see_invis = true" or whatever) there's several things that have a see invisibility power that's stronger than you're likely to be able to stack invisibility power. So, while they don't just get a flat bypass, their innate see invis is higher than your invisibility ever will be.

As for invis as an offensive option, I personally haven't tried it since the mondo nerf. I'm not going to say it isn't possible (because you can probably stack up enough +% damage for physical [on an SB] or fire/etc. [on a mage] to offset the damage malus), but I would say that little makes me happier than an enemy popping an invis rune, because they just made themselves a non-threat (or at least considerably less of a threat) for several turns.

[SageAcrin]

You can't truly offset the invisibility penalty. At least, not practically.

It's shoved into damage_types as a special effect that comes in after the usual Damage% bonuses.

In other words, it's not like Shield Wall, where getting +20% physical damage gives you the same physical damage bonus as someone without Shield Wall. You can't just build up +70% damage with standard Invisibility and deal normal damage-you have to build up closer to +200%, since it's dividing your bonus damage as well, if I understand it correctly. (Casual testing in cheat mode, while I was testing Tricks, seemed to confirm this.)

I generally wrote off standard Invisibility as an escape-killing enemies with it would be soul crushingly tedious even if it was effective. Which I, admittedly, have never really tried. As near as I can tell, most people haven't.

Darkest Light is, of course, a bit different-50% is a notably more manageable penalty than 70%, and I've been wondering if that can be ran with.

And all bets are off when Tricks of the Trade are in the mix. I am very interested in running a Shadowblade with that Prodigy, to see how well heavy Invisibility works. (On the other hand, Tricks has a pretty solid downside later in the game, so I'm not worried about it being too strong, honestly.)

[tiger_eye]

I effectively used invisibility on a shadowblade offensively before:

http://te4.org/characters/6887/tome/dda ... 25900d6212

It might take a little longer to kill enemies, but since they can't see you, they're not that dangerous. This actually made the prides relatively easy.

[noxnoctum]

Ok cool thanks, but no point in getting more than one point in it since if they have see invis you can't outsack it I guess?

BTW it's normal that I can't see my own character when I go invis right?

[Sirrocco]

No - that's not the deal at all. Invisibility is like everything else in TOME - it's your stat vs their stat with a bit of random thrown in. If you have only a little, then monsters with effectively no ability to see invis will still be able to see you sometimes, and those with some see invis will see you pretty consistently. If you crank it up as far as you can, then those that have effectively none won't see you, and those who have some won't see you, and those that have a fair bit might see you some of the time, and there will still be a few that will pretty much see you no matter what you do. There's a sliding scale there. It's like a save vs being seen - the higher your saves are, the more they'll let you ignore.

[noxnoctum]

What is Darkest Light? Is that a weapon or something? I haven't come across that.

[SageAcrin]

Darkest Light is the final skill in the Celestial/Eclipse tree, which only Anorithils get naturally.

Basically it's Invisibility, with some odd resource consumption rules(converts negative to positive, breaks if your positive goes over your negative), and a 50% damage penalty instead of Invisibility's 70%. (Oh and a bonus damaging explosion when you can't maintain it anymore. Nice plus.)

On paper, I think it makes a pretty good offensive skill, but I haven't ran an Anorithil to tell you. It's also not as easily maintained as Invisibility(where you can get enough Mana regen to eventually match its drain).

[noxnoctum]

Oh ok, thanks.

Well I just used invisibility in dark crypt and it made it a cakewalk. None of them except for one rare had any detection so I just took my time and cleaned house .

Only 3 levels away from tricks of the trade and then the real fun starts

I was a bit confused by how the AI reacts to it though. Do they just fire spells randomly in any direction or at your last known location or what? How does that work?

Also, if an enemy casts illuminate does that negate my invisibility in the same way that having a light on would?

[noxnoctum]

On a slightly different note, does anyone else get a big performance hit when invisible? My game runs MUCH less smoothly. Wish there was something I could do about it.

[darkgod]

Disable shaders