Soooo....

stealth is the only armor that gives

25 fhr
25 fcr
25 frw

enigma is the only other armor I know that gives frw and it gives 45 frw, and it's op because of this (and other factors)

very few good armors give 25 or 30 fcr, of which are fort/vipermagi/ormus, all of which are nice but don't give frw

25 fhr on-top of these other 2 factors makes this runeword a viable defensive option as you won't instantly die when you get hit.

It's not crazy to have a 200 fcr build that looks like this early ladder

20% fcr Circlet
25% stealth
20% arachnids
20% fcr (rings)
10% fcr amulet
20% trang/magefist
50% wiz spike
35% spirit
aldurs boots

With this build you are able to do countess/mephisto runs at the fastest possible speed in the game, just barely reaching the 200 fcr breakpoint making cast speed capped
whilst having 65 faster run walk

So who wants to answer: Is stealth op

yes

Arach and wiz are late game items not available early ladder. Dual spirit would be more realistic though.

shako >

Wizard spike is literally free 99% of the ladder and extremely cheap the other 1% idk where you get your info from but even fallen in act 1 drop wizard spike.
You can easily farm it and get it from nightmare nihlathak or anywhere in the black marsh in hell. I've gotten so many in the black marsh in hell. Aslong as you have 300%+ mf you'll find it in less than a few hours.
Make a wealth, find some chancies, put 3 p-topaz's in a helm, grab a gul dagger from gheed by gambling for it on a lvl 9-12 alt, and boom over 300 mf.

Also arachnids you'd have to trade for, but otherwise you can replace it with a 10% fcr crafted belt and craft a 20% fcr amulet

I'd wager it'd be easier finding arachnids in the pits than it is to craft a 20fcr ammy

Also, yes, you can opt for a non-200 fcr build, but in the end you want 200fcr if ur running countess exclusively. Affording an arachnids as your ONLY EXPENSIVE item, is not that hard. People figure ways to get enigma for h-dins
I'm sure you can find a way to get arachnids.

This post was edited by fishbro on Aug 10 2022 03:31am

Fallen in underground passage can drop it, but with a 0.0001012% 1:987964 chance. Good luck with that.

Farming hell that early in ladder with such sub-par gear is very time consuming and risky, since you die all the time from having -50% all resists and 700 hit points. I play hardcore so that may be a little different, but would still be frustrating in sc.

Also considering one doesn't trade.. if you do, then of course everything is possible.

However, your points about crafted amulet and belt are good. With that and spirit sword+shield, then 200% fcr is possible quite early yes. Finding the monarch would be the hardest thing. There is also suicide branch and spectral shard, then using 20% fcr shield makes 70%.

How the hell are you reaching 200 fcr with a 35% spirit sword?

35 spirit
35 spirit
20 circlet
20 amulet
20 gloves
20 belt
30 viper
10 ring
10 ring

Suicide branch = 50 = +15%

means you can have a little less on amulet and use 25% stealth, and possibly 10% fcr belt.

Using viper means 5% more, meaning possible use of wall of the eyeless and maybe even rhyme.

This post was edited by Taurean on Aug 10 2022 08:38am

This was a good read thanks everyone

Amazing 2k blizz dmg build. I like the frw from stealth to run quicker to waypoint (telekinesis is for morons right?) so you can make up for that 30 seconds it takes for a meph kill