Is stealth a waste of time investing in?

[Ferrante]

But for those that enjoy the tactical applications of Stealth, the way it works in PoE is nothing short of a travesty. The funny thing is that a lot of people (me included) still Stealth everywhere, because you need to Stealth to detect secrets, but never use it for the things you'd think Stealth would be used for.

 

I dont get why people would stealth everywhere. I don't care about find a "Fine sword" around end of the game. I stealth in a new area just because if I dont, enemies will see me when I see them and we will start a battle before I can throw spells at them or, even better, to be melee I can hit them really hard before their spells. It works and it is cool. Options are good, you are using it to find "small Shield", I'm using it to kill the enemies. 

[Crucis]

I don't think that Stealth is a waste of time at all.  But the real question should probably be how much is enough.  Enoch suggested only 2 ranks of Stealth being enough.  I tend to prefer more like 3 or 4 for most of the party.  I do think that it's good to have one character with more than that for true scouting purposes.  Also, it's worthwhile for your traps and locks guy to have pretty good stealth, since that character works better if he's either in the front line of your formation while moving in scout mode, or walking ahead of the party.  That is, if you have your trap detector walking in the back row of your party, that character may not detect the trap before someone in the front of the formation walks over said trap.  This should be obvious.  You want your trap detector out in front so that he can detect traps before anyone else walks over them.

 

Other than this, as has been suggested above, having a decent level of stealth on the entire party is useful for allowing you to get most, if not all, of your party into ranged weapons range of the enemy without being detected.  It's particularly good if you can get close enough that your longest ranged weapons (i.e. bows and xbows) are in range of enemy spellcasters, cuz it's great to focus a number of those weapons on those spellcasters to punch them out right at the start.  In addition to that, if you're that close, you can often have a priest cast a seal spell, and/or have your traps character lay a trap, before you decide to force the battle to start.

 

Using stealth is about approaching combat from a sneaky perspective.  OTOH, if your approach is more of a smash mouth, wade into the enemy with no subtly or sneakiness, then I guess that steal won't matter to you. 

[Clicks]

I put a decent amount of stealth into my rogue, just so I can get to a respectable distance to fire a shot off before battle to utilise the crazy damage.

[peddroelm]

melee party can use stealth to get into position

 

poor xaurips didn't knew what hit them

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OF8pdjrg8wI#t=7776

 

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It can be Very useful  for melee party to allow you get trough bottle necks (Doors) and give enough time to move all squad in position in open terrain ..  (bring all "guns" to bear) .

 

Stealth less alternative is  to "pull" the enemies from the bottlenecks towards your melee party that opens in position in the open terrain ..

[abaris]

I put a decent amount of stealth into my rogue, just so I can get to a respectable distance to fire a shot off before battle to utilise the crazy damage.

 

Even if the combat already started it's the first two seconds that count for sneak attack. So for that purpose, your rogue doesn't need any stealth. Just a hit within the first two seconds of the engagement.

[Clicks]

 

I put a decent amount of stealth into my rogue, just so I can get to a respectable distance to fire a shot off before battle to utilise the crazy damage.

 

Even if the combat already started it's the first two seconds that count for sneak attack. So for that purpose, your rogue doesn't need any stealth. Just a hit within the first two seconds of the engagement.

 

 

Yeah that's true. I guess I do it just to give the stealth skill more purpose - I enjoy sneaking in and taking enemies off guard.

[Luckmann]

 

But for those that enjoy the tactical applications of Stealth, the way it works in PoE is nothing short of a travesty. The funny thing is that a lot of people (me included) still Stealth everywhere, because you need to Stealth to detect secrets, but never use it for the things you'd think Stealth would be used for.

 

I dont get why people would stealth everywhere. I don't care about find a "Fine sword" around end of the game. I stealth in a new area just because if I dont, enemies will see me when I see them and we will start a battle before I can throw spells at them or, even better, to be melee I can hit them really hard before their spells. It works and it is cool. Options are good, you are using it to find "small Shield", I'm using it to kill the enemies. 

 

 

Because Measured Restraint, Oaken Scarab Figurine, hidden rooms and paths, and several thousands worth of gems and ingredients. That's why you stealth everywhere. Finding secrets and pre-combat positioning is pretty much everything you use Stealth for; it's actually pretty much all you can use it for.

[abaris]

 

 

 

Because Measured Restraint, Oaken Scarab Figurine, hidden rooms and paths, and several thousands worth of gems and ingredients. That's why you stealth everywhere. Finding secrets and pre-combat positioning is pretty much everything you use Stealth for; it's actually pretty much all you can use it for.

 

 

Compared to other games it's an incredibly weak skill. To be fair, I never had a real stealthy character in POE, since I found the mechanics skill of much more use, but normally 2 or 3 points of stealth get you through most if not all situations. It's even enough to rob one or two chests in populated rooms without being spotted.