Shrouded Dance at Performance 5 is overpowered

[Chabxxu]

There is a reason G. Sanc was nerfed. This is effectively G. Sanc for stealth-capable characters, with a much lower bar for entry. Arguing that it isn't OP because it's used primarily for getting out of a bad situation is silly, considering that G. Sanc was nerfed for exactly the same reason.

G.Sanc was OP and unbalanced because there was a single way to spot someone under GS and it was by shapechanging into a dragon. You still have ways to deal with someone who uses shrouded dance, and its called invest in detection skills, feat, gear

[Nemesis 24]

The way to do that is generally spot, and frankly, only 1 character in hundreds is going to come across the +5 spot gear needed to reach an appreciable score to detect.  Stealth gear drops far more frequently than detect after all, and scrolls for further increasing it can simply be bought on top of that gear.

[DM Cataclysm]

There is a reason G. Sanc was nerfed. This is effectively G. Sanc for stealth-capable characters, with a much lower bar for entry. Arguing that it isn't OP because it's used primarily for getting out of a bad situation is silly, considering that G. Sanc was nerfed for exactly the same reason.

I can’t really agree that Shrouded Dance is anywhere on par with Greater Sanctuary. This wasn’t really nerfed because it provided a one-time escape plan.

Greater Sanctuary made you effectively undetectable to anything hostile, including creatures with unnerfed True Seeing, tremor-sense, etc - such as Balors, Adaphage Sharpshooters, Elder Oozes and the like. That’s not something provided by Shrouded Dance. You also received this essentially for free when achieving the correct level of Cleric or Mage levels, with no skill or feat investment required. A high level sorcerer using extend spell could use Greater Sanctuary 12+ times per rest.

I would go into some of the extremely devious things you could do with Greater Sanctuary that are impossible with Shrouded Dance - but I don’t want to corrupt any innocent minds :>

Also as mentioned a few other times, Shrouded Dance really isn’t comparable to the actual HIPS ability. The true power of HIPS is not a one-time escape, but it’s effectiveness in combat. The ability to drop in and out of stealth in combat to catch enemies flat-footed, gain sneak attacks, or disrupt a spell that is targeting you is really what can make it invaluable.

While I’m not opposed to a few tweaks to Shrouded Dance - I really don’t feel it’s exactly that out of balance now.

[APorg]

Greater Sanctuary, or even it's successor Ethereal Jaunt, comes at the opportunity cost of other abilities. It's not "free", at least not in a game design sense. If you want it, you're committed to a build.

The only commitment Shrouded Dance really requires is 5 Performance and 1 Feat. Every Rogue, Bard, or Monk stealther can and should take it.

And Shrouded Dance may not be as powerful as GSanc,  but it certainly competes with Ethereal Jaunt. Ethereal Jaunt doesn't stop someone being seen by See Invisibility or True Seeing anymore, and is hard countered by Magic Missile Swarms. Stealth doesn't have a hard counter,  at least in PvP; detection is a soft counter that requires considerable investment.

The feat would be a lot fairer if it worked off a DEX check.

(Yes, I'm repeating myself a lot )

[DM Cataclysm]

Well, if you’re specifically comparing a Mage with see invisibility/True Seeing/missile storms to counter Ethereal Jaunt, they’d also be able to counter Shrouded Dance. I’ve had someone use HIPS in PvP and killed them instantly with an AoE spell, simply by throwing it around where they were last seen.

Now, if they’re entering an area under stealth and you can’t see them at all - that’s a different story, but you also don’t need Shrouded Dance for that :>

[BahamutZ3RO]

I've got two PrCs with HiPS, and I don't feel like Shrouded Dance in any way has cheapened them or made them irrelevant. I've also got a lot of other sneaks, who I don't intend to take Shrouded Dance on. It's a pretty decent feat and might be a good "OH NO" button for ninja-looters, but I think people are grossly overestimating the usefulness of it. It's very hard to get good stealth score these days, and it's not hard to get a high listen/spot score at all. Most stealthers who know what they're doing are very careful about stealth; they hug corners, avoid getting too close to anyone who might have detection, etc. Being in melee range of someone trying to kill you means you're already caught, and Shrouded Dance is not likely to help you at that point.

[APorg]

Well, if you’re specifically comparing a Mage with see invisibility/True Seeing/missile storms to counter Ethereal Jaunt, they’d also be able to counter Shrouded Dance. I’ve had someone use HIPS in PvP and killed them instantly with an AoE spell, simply by throwing it around where they were last seen.

IMO the fact that it is comparable to Ethereal Jaunt, yet only costs 5 Performance, is telling. What if arcanists had a feat that, for Spellcraft 12 and Lore 5, let you cast Ethereal Jaunt once per day on a Spellcraft DC of 30?

It's very hard to get good stealth score these days, and it's not hard to get a high listen/spot score at all.

My anecdotes disagree with your anecdotes. I seem to find Hide rings common enough that when I offer them for free, people respond, "Oh, already got those" -- whereas people bid heavily for those rare Spot rings. Great stealth gear may uncommon, but so is great Spot gear.

Maybe Listen gear is easier to find, but not everyone can play a Listener, and only Bards can cast Amplify.

Most stealthers who know what they're doing are very careful about stealth; they hug corners, avoid getting too close to anyone who might have detection, etc.

Stealthers who know what they're doing will be precisely the ones who know how to extract the most value out of a HIPS per day. This point doesn't really go anywhere.

Being in melee range of someone trying to kill you means you're already caught, and Shrouded Dance is not likely to help you at that point.

Why not? Does getting struck actually disrupt the Shrouded Dance effect? Have you verified?

If not, unless you're killed on a gank, you click on a button and, if your opponent isn't a detector, you disappear.

And you guys have done nothing to address the main gist of my arguments, namely: that it's very cheap, and it's somewhat uneven because it becomes an automatic success at high levels. Does anyone actually think that the cost is just right, and the mechanics are absolutely fine?

[McNastea]

Why are you okay with the fact that one thing which requires only reaching a certain level can only be countered by a person who has prepared a specific set of spells, in this case being only either a wizard or a sorcerer, but not okay with the fact that shrouded dance can be countered by anyone who bothered to take detect? You act like detection is difficult and it is really very simple, and it's easier to beat stealth than it is to beat detection.

If Shrouded Dance doesn't trigger an AoO with a chance of interrupting it then it's not working as intended from the last I heard of it's changes, and if it doesn't do that then I think it should definitely.

By the way, for the record, Shrouded Dance isn't even as strong as Ethereal Jaunt, much less Greater Sanctuary. GS makes you immune to everything, even if something happens to have -real- true sight, which is pretty much nothing a player can achieve short of shapeshifting to a red dragon and even then all they can do is see you - not harm you in any way. Ethereal Jaunt still makes you immune to damn near everything, something that Shrouded Dance doesn't do in the least bit. Additionally, you can cast these multiple times a day. As Mika pointed out, one aoe can pretty easily take care of someone in stealth. What are they gonna do, walk away very slowly? Good luck

I'm fairly certain no one has argued against making it more difficult to use, I even said as much originally, as did other people. The points I've taken exception to are the ones I and others have been arguing. If you think it should be reworked to be more difficult to use then that's fine with me, I just don't think mountains should be made out of molehills. It's been blown pretty far out of proportion at this point in my opinion. Something can be worth reworking without making it out to be the single most powerful ability in the game.

[APorg]

Why are you okay with the fact that one thing which requires only reaching a certain level can only be countered by a person who has prepared a specific set of spells, in this case being only either a wizard or a sorcerer, but not okay with the fact that shrouded dance can be countered by anyone who bothered to take detect?

Suggesting that I can't have concerns about Shrouded Dance because I haven't raised issues about Ethreal Jaunt is a poor argument. Ethereal Jaunt is a move towards PnP, and at any case most of us are just glad GSanc is dead. But this version of Shrouded Dance is completely different from PnP.

You act like detection is difficult and it is really very simple, and it's easier to beat stealth than it is to beat detection.

This is yet a contest of swinging anecdotes. In my experience, Stealth gear is more common than Spot gear, therefore I disagree with you. I guess I need to start playing Bards or other Listen classes to be certain of having decent detection. :/

By the way, for the record, Shrouded Dance isn't even as strong as Ethereal Jaunt, much less Greater Sanctuary. GS makes you immune to everything, even if something happens to have -real- true sight, which is pretty much nothing a player can achieve short of shapeshifting to a red dragon and even then all they can do is see you - not harm you in any way. Ethereal Jaunt still makes you immune to damn near everything, something that Shrouded Dance doesn't do in the least bit. Additionally, you can cast these multiple times a day. As Mika pointed out, one aoe can pretty easily take care of someone in stealth. What are they gonna do, walk away very slowly? Good luck

Okay, so what power level is Shrouded Dance equivalent to? Let's play a game. We're going to take Feats and map them to approximate spell power.

Healing Hands
Type of Feat: General
Prerequisite: Heal 5 ranks.
Specifics: The character can bring someone back from the brink of death. Once per day, if the character succeeds on a Heal check made to stabilize a bleeding character, that character also heals 1d6 points of damage.
Use: Automatic.

Healing Hands, once per day, lets you heal 1d6 HP. On average, this is less than a Cure Minor Wounds. Approximate Spell power level: 0.

Clarity of Vision
Type of Feat: General
Prerequisite: Spot 12 ranks.
Specifics: The character can briefly see invisible opponents. Once per day, as a free action, he can attempt a DC 30 Spot check. If successful, he focuses his vision so clearly that he can see invisible creatures for one turn.
Use: Selected.

Once per day, you can See Invisibility. Approximate spell level: 2.

Now let's do the same with Shrouded Dance. Okay, it doesn't easily map to a spell; it's a Stealth enhancer in a rather unique niche. But I hope nobody will argue that it's just equivalent to Invisibility -- Invisibility is easily countered. If HIPS were equivalent to Invisibility, people would buy stacks of Invisibility potions instead of ever applying for the Shadowdancer PRC. So let's move up the scale. Is it as strong as Improved Invisibility? Possibly, Improved Invisibility lasts a lot longer, but is still more easily countered -- it's easier to get See Invisibility/True Seeing potions than it is Spot gear; even the conceal bonus can be partly countered with Blindfight. That's spell level 4. At any rate, this effect is clearly more powerful than a level 2 spell. And let's accept that Ethereal Jaunt is its upper limit.

So that's an approximate spell level of 3 to 7. Compare that to the other feats, and it's obvious this feat is a considerable step up in power.

I'm fairly certain no one has argued against making it more difficult to use, I even said as much originally, as did other people. The points I've taken exception to are the ones I and others have been arguing. If you think it should be reworked to be more difficult to use then that's fine with me, I just don't think mountains should be made out of molehills. It's been blown pretty far out of proportion at this point in my opinion. Something can be worth reworking without making it out to be the single most powerful ability in the game.

You know, I wish the first time the point had been brought up, the topic would have gone like this:

"Hey, this feat is a little strong."
"OK, I'll tweak it."
FIN

And many people seems to kinda-sorta agree that maybe the feat is a bit too strong, but nobody actually engages with proposed compromises or puts energy into finding a consensus, preferring instead to argue over minutae (and hey, I freely admit I'm argumentative, but it takes more than one to tango).

So, if you agree broadly with me that this feat could be tweaked a little, let's focus on that:

* Raising the Performance requirement. What do you think about that?
* Replacing the Hide check with a DEX check to make the Feat less level-dependent, what do you think about that?
* What other tweaks can we think up that would make the Feat closer in power level to the likes of, say, Clarity of Vision?

[EO]

As usual people are free to discuss but any decision whether to tweak it or not is left to the dev team’s discretion. At this point our consensus as a team has been to give it time then reevaluate it later, like any other feat or system. Personally I think it works exactly how I envisioned it to.

[APorg]

Guess I should just make a Bard stealther.

[Daboomer]

So i have been reading through this thread for a while. I Keep coming back to what a small investment it is and how it would be weird to not allways have a few ranks in perform now on any stealth build.

[McNastea]

Suggesting that I can't have concerns about Shrouded Dance because I haven't raised issues about Ethreal Jaunt is a poor argument. Ethereal Jaunt is a move towards PnP, and at any case most of us are just glad GSanc is dead. But this version of Shrouded Dance is completely different from PnP.

My point was that in your argument that SD was as powerful as EJ you contradicted your earlier contention with SD only being countered by detection which is something that literally any character can invest points and gear in as opposed to the 2 classes that can counter EJ so long as they have and have prepared the correct spells. It's not a poor argument, it's relevant to your own.

This is yet a contest of swinging anecdotes. In my experience, Stealth gear is more common than Spot gear, therefore I disagree with you. I guess I need to start playing Bards or other Listen classes to be certain of having decent detection. :/

In order to truly beat detection you have to be able to always roll above their highest possible roll, so you need 20 more stealth than they have detection. I've seen characters who cross train detection able to roll in the 50's and 60's and it can go even higher, and I've had my own characters rolling up in the 90's when not cross training which means you'd need over 110 stealth to never be caught in that situation. Also, while spot gear may be rare and expensive, listen gear is cheap and plentiful. They both work. This isn't a swinging anecdote, it's a demonstrable fact - detection is easier than stealth.

Okay, so what power level is Shrouded Dance equivalent to? Let's play a game. We're going to take Feats and map them to approximate spell power.

We could play that game, but I think if that's how your draw your own conclusions it says a lot about why we aren't seeing eye to eye on this. Instead, I think I'll just concede that we simply won't, which is cool.

You know, I wish . . . .

Shrouded Dance and Clarity of Vision have the same DC, I'm not sure what you mean when you say bringing SD more in line with CoV. Do you mean by nerfing the effect of SD or by making SD more difficult because you believe the effects aren't comparable whereas the DC's are the same?

Shrouded Dance takes a round to use (confirmed), I was under the impression that it also provoked an AoO (not confirmed) and could be interupted (also not confirmed). If not I think that it should, and if it did I really wouldn't see much point in changing it further. Not many stealth characters have concentration, it really wouldn't be hard to stop them from going stealth if they tried it mid combat.

Something to keep in mind is that as soon as they roll their Hide DC they still have to roll against everyone's detection, which means they not only have to beat a DC 30 hide check but potentially much harsher DC's from every single person observing them. So in reality it's not actually as simple as beating a Hide check alone. It's obvious but worth mentioning in my own opinion since it's being addressed as if all you have to do to disappear is beat a DC 30.

As for increasing the Perform requirement, I'm not a huge fan. I think the token amount is plenty given most builds are stretching their skill points as far as possible already, even rogues with the added usefulness of sleight of hand and related feats, unless you're not going for full combat effectiveness -and- stealth. Rangers don't even get it as a class skill, so 5 perform means 10 skill points. Monks are stretched pretty thin on skill points as well. Making them take 5 points they would have used to max another more directly useful skill is enough of a sacrifice imo.

But here's where we reach an impasse, what I consider a feat worthy of a token sacrifice to other skills you consider something far too powerful for such little investment. If we can't agree on the value of the feat then we're gonna have a hard time agreeing on what's acceptable in terms of prerequisites go.

So that leaves how the feat itself functions, which would take some thinking on my part, and EO has also already said this isn't really up to the playerbase but the Devs which is a given anyway. That being said, I enjoy thinking about that stuff regardless so will probably do so even if it's just theoretical xD

Perhaps the biggest take away from this is that detection shouldn't be undervalued by players who don't want to be beaten by stealth

By the way, does anyone else remember when people were ranting about rogues being garbage a few months ago? 

[APorg]

I said that Ethereal Jaunt was hard countered by Magic Missiles, whereas Stealth only has a soft counter. The difference is: a hard counter is always highly effective whereas a soft counter goes to some contest and the outcome is more ambiguous . The point is, someone who uses Ethereal Jaunt has no defence against Missile Swarms beyond hoping the mages don't have See Invisibility up; someone using Shrouded Dance can at least hope on dice rolls.

A nuance you seem to have missed, the existence of hard counters doesn't imply there are no soft counters. Ethereal Jaunt also has soft counters: since the caster can be detected, they can be chased until the spell expires after a couple of minutes.  This is a soft counter because the outcome is ambiguous; the caster may make it to safety, they may not. At any rate, the counters to Ethereal Jaunt do not require heavy investment and there is no hypocrisy in my position. Let's move on.

The fact that you feel the need to explain to me how to Stealth suggest that you think I disagree with you because I don't understand how the system works. I assure you, I do. We are both supporting our arguments off anecdotes; to suggest your position is truer because it is based on "demonstrable facts" is simply ignoring data that doesn't fit your point of view.

I freely admit my own opinion is subjective; I won't try to dress it up. But in my experience, and I've ninjalooted a lot, Rings of Hiding are far more common than +5 Spot Rings; Canes of Detection are few and far between; there are no detector armour, boots, or cloaks that match stealther items, boots or cloaks (well there might be one cloak but it's not common).

Even on the buff front, stealthers don't have it so bad. Amulets of Shelter for Camouflage are cheap and common, and AFAIK Verbrekian cloaks still drop, so Lay of the Land is still in the table. Meanwhile, combining in-class Spot with full caster True Seeing is tough as hell, and only Bards or Rogues with UMD get Amplify.

So please stop oversimplifying the picture and telling me the 20 lead detection has makes it a foregone conclusion. It's not that simple. The balance between Stealth and Detection has always been a close one. It's in this context that I think Shrouded Dance heavily shifts the balance towards Stealth.

I said it before: I fear that Shrouded Dance may make detection investment not merely desirable but mandatory for dealing with certain classes. So every time someone says that the counter to Shrouded Dance is just to invest in detection, they are making my point for me.

Time will tell. I've been talking to a lot of people who consider this feat super cheap, so cheap that people are buying it cross class. I feel confident in my prediction.

Meanwhile, since investing in detection is so easy, if you could hook a brother up with a couple of Rings of Seeing Eyes and a Cane of Detection,  I'd really appreciate it.

[McNastea]

I explain how things work while addressing you and your points to support my own points with information that can be understood by everyone else for a reason and it's not because I think you personally dont know how any of it works. This is a discussion on the forum, after all, not simply between you and me. Including that information makes my own position and what we're talking about more easily understood by anyone regardless of how much they know about the subject.

Like I said in my last post, I dont think we're going to agree on this Aprog, and personally I'm getting tired of going in circles.

[APorg]

Of course we disagree. But you're the one challenging my argument, telling me my opinion is a contradiction or opposes demonstrable facts. By all means, if you wish us to find common grounds to discuss, let's do that!

In the meantime, I'm happy to argue my corner. At least forum debate shines a light on the issue and more people are likely to consider matters critically when they occur IC.

[McNastea]

Well we've essentially just parroted near the same notions we've started with back at one another in varying ways. It just feels like we're simply reiterating ourselves over and over and I think we both at least understand where the other one stands, so not a lot of point left in continuing it if that's the case.

As far as discussing common grounds I did try and address some of the questions you had at the and of my last post. Admittedly though I haven't done a lot of thinking about how the feat might work differently between going to sleep and waking up so nothing new to add there lol

[Iridni Ren]

The area of common ground seems to be that obtaining the feat should be more difficult. FlyingLotus said he hadn't seen anyone arguing against increasing the difficulty. (Although later he did write he "wasn't a fan" of increasing the Perform cost: Reading his reasons, however, they seem to be because the Perform cost would make the feat more difficult to achieve--which is the point, right?)

As far as having to stretch to get all the mad skillz, to me that's a good thing. Choices are what makes the game (and builds) both interesting and challenging. It's why items have maluses as well as benefits. (I also thought rangers received a boost in skill points with the recent update and that perhaps bards did, too?)

Finally, EO's post indicated that the feat works the way he envisioned. Although that would imply discussing its mechanics is pretty much a waste of time for now, it doesn't slam the door quite so tightly on the suggestion of modifying the requirements to obtain the feat.

[Pav]

Shrouded Dance made me quit the server.

joking but not really.

[BraveSirRobin]

Shrouded Dance is the bee’s knees, gosh golly? Is that the sentiment of the thread here? It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a bottle black for the purposes of mechanics. Even if you have Ultravision up, which is unlikely? Since you’re probably not gonna get ganked until you rest anyways... It has the same effect for disengaging.

[APorg]

Bottled Black is countered by a level 2 spell. I've literally been in a situation where people have tried to disengage using Bottle Black, and failed, because I had TS up. Shrouded Dance is stronger than that, it contests on stealth.