Online:Stealth

Stealth, also known as Sneak, governs your ability to escape detection by others through reducing your visibility and noisiness. It is primarily useful for evading confrontation with enemies, and for executing surprise attacks that inflict critical damage.

In previous Elder Scrolls games, "Stealth" and "Sneak" are different concepts: stealth being a grouping of (more-or-less loosely) conceptually related skills, of which sneak was one. In ESO, there is not a distinct, developed skill line for this behavior, and any character can sneak. Similarly, being "stealthed" in ESO usually refers to a sneaking character who is hidden from enemies.

Skill Usage

Toggling the sneak control causes the player to crouch or stand, indicating that you have entered or left sneak mode. Moving while sneaking will burn stamina; if the player stops moving, stamina regenerates normally.

While sneaking, the crosshair becomes a special "eye" reticle indicating the following statuses:

• A horizontal line indicates you are completely hidden, or "stealthed". This is accompanied by the text hidden, and your character gains a shadow over their location.
• The "eye" begins to open as you get near to an enemy, or if an enemy begins to search for you.
• A solid oval means the enemy knows where you are or can see you. This is accompanied by the text detected.

Sneak Attacks

You perform a sneak attack when you physically strike someone who is unaware of your presence. Sneak attacks do up to 3 times the amount of damage of a normal attack.

• The sneak multiplier is only applied to the physical damage done by a weapon, i.e. the damage shown for the weapon in your inventory.
  • Poison and enchantment-related damage enhancements are added to damage inflicted by power attacks, their effects are not increased by performing sneak attacks
• Sneak damage applies to all attack types, including dual-wield weapons, bows, and skills.

If a sneak attack does not kill an enemy, you will become detected -- by the enemy themselves and by any of their allies within detection range. This seems to be true even if it does not appear that the enemies "ought" to be able to know where the attack came from -- e.g., by an arrow fired from cover.

Also, when you attack from sneak, you immediately leave sneak. Leaving sneak automatically has the benefit of making you instantly able to attack/defend/run without being handicapped in your movement speed, but may factor into the fact that you become immediately visible.

Subsequently crouching to return to sneak, or using concealing skills such as the Nightblade's Shadow Cloak, will have whatever success in hiding you again that they would in any combat situation: mixed, depending on your circumstances. However, if you can regain sneak, you can immediately attack again and have the usual sneak multipliers apply.

Sneak Buffs

Sneak is improved by buffs that decrease the distance at which you are likely to be detected, increase stealth damage, and reduce stamina cost.

Character Creation

The following races have passive skills that provide a bonus to Sneak:

• Bosmer: Stealthy – 3 ranks available, the first at Player Level 25. "Improved Stealth radius by 1/2/3 meters. Increases damage while Stealthed by 3/6/9%."
• Khajiit: Stealthy – 3 ranks available, the first at Player Level 10. "Improved Stealth radius by 1/2/3 meters. Increases damage while Stealthed by 3/6/9%."

Armor Skills

The following armor types have passive skills that provide a bonus to Sneak:

• Medium: Improved Sneak – 2 ranks available, the first at Medium Armor Level 14. "Decreases the detection area radius by 3/5% and the cost of Sneaking by 4/7%, per piece of Medium Armor equipped."
  • Thus, with 1 rank of the skill taken, wearing 3 pieces of armor would give a 9% reduction in sneak detection radius, and reduce stamina consumption by 12%. With 2 ranks and 7 pieces (the maximum), you would have a 35% reduction in sneak detection radius, and 49% lower stamina consumption.

Legerdemain

The world skill line Legerdemain has a passive ability which reduces the stamina cost of sneaking.