As you probably have read, there are no pure stealthers, but basically the Witch Elf and Witch Hunter have an ability usable once a minute (the re-use timer begins when you break your stealth) that stealths them for 30 seconds at high effectiveness, while draining a small amount of Action Points over time.
There are a few powerful openers you can use, not PA (Perforate Artery of DAOC (Dark Age of Camelot)) powerful but enough to turn the fight in your favor nicely or close distance unseen during a group fight (it is a 2-second cast timer that you can use while moving, but if you get hit it interrupts it). The Witch Elf/Witch Hunter both get very effective melee abilities, and while they can take a small amount of punishment from melee they have a lot of tools to combat magic users such as silence, etc. Even though they can’t be stealthed for long periods, it’s enough to give the element of surprise and a nice opener. Note that you will not be able to kill someone before they can do control their character or do anything like you could in WOW, or kill people in 5-7 seconds as in DAOC if they were a caster and your PA attack landed with a critical. However, in trade for your stealthing prowess you get a LOT of anti-magic and anti-melee tools.
The Witch Hunter has, for instance, a few “charms” he can spec for in the Mastery paths. The four ones are, on one-minute re-use timers (cooldowns) that are separate from each other:
1) Base charm (core ability): Breaks roots/snares and grants immunity for several seconds.
2) Grants a large boost in chance to disrupt spells.
3) Makes your attacks penetrate half of your enemy’s armor.
4) Deals damage back an attacker that strikes you with a melee attack.
They get a few rapid movement tools such as one that knocks down (stuns) an enemy while hurling you backward the equivalent of around 600 DAOC units (good for distance/running, or stunning if your back’s against a wall so you don’t go anywhere but knock them down still). Incognito (stealth) works IN COMBAT so if you can get away for two seconds you’re golden. They have a few snares/etc. as well, plus the one I’ll talk about in a second called “snap shot”.
Additionally they have a silence move that does damage if behind the target (high damage) and lasts three seconds + interrupts any currently building spell… a “snap shot” ability that lets them shoot at an enemy with their pistol while running, 1s buildup and if you equip a tactic every Witch Hunter will, it snares them 40% for 3 seconds (great for catching runners, has 65% of an average nuke’s range and does decent damage to help chip away in advance). They have a DOT attack that stacks three times, refreshing the timer each time you apply it… a tactic that makes all critical hits set off a strong DOT… an ability to enter a keep gate (3 second cast, every 5 minutes) or postern door (guards aren’t typically right at them, so it is useful to get inside)… a 30-second or so re-use timer ability that makes positionals land regardless of where you are in relation to your enemy for several seconds, and…
Finishers. Anyone who’s played WOW is familiar with the Rogue’s “combo points” which build up to five while using moves. An opener from stealth gives two of these and 50% endurance/action point usage reduction for ten seconds. Most normal moves give one, some reactives give two. They scale in effectiveness each point, when you use one it takes away your points. They last about 15-20 seconds after the end of combat with your current target before going away fully. The finishers include (but there are more than I’m posting about) REALLY powerful DOT’s, instant damage, damage over time + snares (lower DOT), DOT that heals you as well each tick, AOE damage, etc. Each “combo point” reduces the cost of the finisher 20%, making it free to use at 5 points. Additionally you load your weapon with a few different bullet types that add different effects to the finishers, a “buff” basically so you can further customize how each one works.
You get a disarm for 5 seconds (makes enemies unable to attack with a weapon) off of parrying… every 10 seconds re-use timer, as well as other tools like a siege wrecker and debuff attacks + some that are undefendable reactives that also debuff + damage. The main thing these guys do is very very quick kills with high survivability… just like a DAOC stealther they are able to demolish single or duo targets if you play right but when ganged up on by high-defense characters will die easily. The big difference is they are 100% useful to groups because even without their stealth they are capable fighters, let alone that they can use it while grouped just fine to close the gap during a fight or act as extremely effective guards for your casters/healers. They have the same end result: quick kills, high survivability, low armor/etc. as DAOC ones but go about it in a bit different a manner. Tactics, of course, allow for more defensive or offensive leanings for the classes.
Touching on the topic of the from-stealth attacks for a minute, as said before they are not automatic wins for the Witch Hunter or Witch Elf, but again they are powerful enough to be worth using. All of them provide a 50% Action Point usage reduction for 10 seconds, and build two “combo points” which are called Blood Lusts for the Witch Elf, while the Witch Hunter uses Accusations. For the Witch Hunter, there are three different from-stealth attacks. One of them is “Burn Armor,” which debuffs your enemy to take a medium amount of damage every time they use a melee attack for the next 15 seconds. The second is “Sudden Accusation,” which makes your enemy take a low amount of damage very frequently (every half a second) that they are moving. The last one is “Fanatical Zeal,” which causes your enemy to take a medium amount of damage every time they cast a spell for 15 seconds. So, while all of these are very nice effects that can help to turn the tide of a fight in your favor, you aren’t dead in the water if you miss landing them. While this is a fairly large change from traditional stealth mechanics and power levels, it works well and provides the game play style mostly intact as opposed to removing it entirely, which was discussed for quite awhile during WAR’s development cycle.