Zem

When I call something a "nerf" I am not nerd-raging. To me it just means something was made less effective than it used to be. Justified or not. It is the opposite of "buff".

Maybe I just don't notice them then because I don't think I've ever teamed with one who was only healing people and not also at the very least using their entire secondaries. Then again, I've only recently started spending much time at all blueside.

Fine. Call it an "adjustment" if the word "nerf" is too loaded. I don't really have an opinion on the change since I don't play Brutes. Just saying that when players of popular ATs like Scrappers get concerned about something... stuff happens. And in that very GR beta thread I am talking about, Scrapper fans were even chiming in about stuff the Stalkers got in their last "adjustment" as if something was therefore owed to Scrappers now.

You don't balance scales (that are currently out of balance) by adding the same weight to both sides. That won't stop people from wanting new stuff whenever they see someone else getting buffed though. Justified or not. And if it's a popular AT asking... just saying. I wouldn't be surprised.

As has been pointed out, ET is not a 100% stun. And Stun's stun is not a side-effect. It is the primary effect of the power. Damage is the secondary-effect of Stun. Bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison you've made there.

Point is... stunning is not KM's "thing". Damage debuff and self-damage buff is. KM is actually pretty well served by having not only an overriding theme for its secondary effect of damage debuff, but a fairly good smattering of tertiary effects as well like knockdown and stun chances.

Honestly this is one of those things that I wonder if it was EVER really common. Kind of like the pure healer who just follows people around with heal on auto, not even buffing or attacking. I mean, I've seen support people who only have one attack plenty of times but never someone who merely heals (unless it was someone's 2nd box auto-follower).

Similarly, if I've ever seen a Stalker on a team who just scouted the map to click glowies or actually did AS-and-run-to-Hide it would be the rare exception. Not the rule.

I don't see the need for it, but that's probably because I am a Ninjitsu junkie and don't know what I am missing. I'm sure being able to take QR as a Regen Stalker would be nice. That plus inherent Stamina would be lots of fuel for a high-recharge build.

As for "Stalkers get Hide, what do we get?" I would chuckle about anyone being envious of Stalkers and point out that when you're buffing someone up to be competitive with everyone else, then giving everyone else some candy as well doesn't really make a lot of sense. I say "I would" chuckle about it that is, except everyone else has a better lobby than Stalkers do. Scrappers piped up about being marginalized in GR beta, even including some Stalker envy (which I *did* have to laugh about)... but look what happened.

BAM! Brute nerfs.

Actually it *would* be out of line. Why should CS have a 100% stun AND KM's signature -dmg debuff when Total Focus only has the 100% stun?

Don't the two attacks deal the same amount of damage? I agree that the secondary effect is more useful though.

Yeah... kind of makes me wish I'd paid more attention to the beta forums.

I think if you look at the power detail in game you find that CS doesn't crit at all, ever. The mechanism for recharging Build Up seems to be handled behind the scenes somehow or else it's just that they forgot to add the code that could translate that line-item in CS's effect list into English for the power detail screen.

Either way, it sounds from reading threads like this one that it boils down to a 20% chance to recharge Build Up whenever CS *hits* regardless of your Hidden state. That would also seem to preclude the "double critical" bug from happening with CS (thus giving you two chances after a Placate) which only occurs when the power has different behavior inside Hide and outside of Hide. Or to put it still another way, using CS after Placate is completely pointless and a waste of Placate.

Or have I misunderstood?

You get a kMeter crit by opening with BU+CS. After that you just scrap until the first BU effect runs out and hit Build Up again, which was recharged by the opening crit from Hide. Scrap some more until 2nd BU runs out, then Placate+CS for your second kMeter crit, hit BU a third time and scrap some more.

Voila! 30 seconds of Build Up.

Granted you cannot repeat this immediately since you're waiting for that last BU to recharge normally so you'd just enter Hide before the next fight, get your kMeter crit and then BU. You'd be guaranteed at least two Build Ups as long as Placate is ready. And this isn't even counting CS critting outside of hide at random.

It'd be nuts. I'm sure they thought of it and probably immediately rejected the idea. And I don't think not using AS would be much of a deterrent. The benefit of all that extra build up time would pretty quickly swamp the initial burst you'd get from AS.

You realize this would effectively be the same thing as perma-Build-Up.. right? At least for any fight that doesn't last longer than 30 seconds anyway.

Is it a shame though? What's the performance difference? Has anyone run the numbers?

Remember also that Stalkers didn't lose a full crit on Concentrated Strike from Hide. CS is a Total Focus clone. If they had made it crit from Hide, it would only be for an additional 28% of the normal damage, not 100%. Same as TF.

Do you actually think you're doing better than 20% average crit rate outside of Hide, even on a full team?

And that's correct IF you always have an attack or chain of attacks whose damage will exceed that of AS in the next 3 seconds, bearing in mind that AS can also be interrupted. It's a gamble you should only use if you're soft-capped and not facing a lot of enemies or they're not aggroed on you (or mezzed I suppose). For any stalker with a complete ST attack chain it is probably never a good idea.

Or to put it another way, it's often better than just standing around doing nothing.

If the problem is that the steamroller is steamrolling even bosses in the spawn that quickly then the problem is not really a problem with Assassin Strike. Honestly, are you really contributing with a lesser attack just because you can manage to squeak one in there a second before the target would have died anyway? What AT would contribute anything to a 7-person steamroller that is already doing what you claim it is doing to that degree... without you?

No, becuase the situation you describe is not typical. It may be typical for you but then there are problems trying to do ANY addiitonal single-target damage on such a team.

I know how "a lot" of people play in the high end game. I have been playing my 50 stalker on Virtue for years and I have played with "a lot" of different people, rather than a single core group of regulars. Yes, there is little but the travel time between spawns. There is no waiting around. But it's still plenty of time to get back into Hide and AS the first good target in each spawn at the very least and this is what I am saying is worth it compared to your other ST attacks. You do not lose DPS by 'striking the first target.

You simply cannot use this situation in an argument about AT balance. It's just ridiculous. If the seven other people on your team are doing 2500+ hit points of damage to the boss in 3 seconds then you are just entirely irrelevant on a damage dealer of just about any kind. Either you are competing with many others who are also ST focused and going after the same boss or you're on a highly damage-buffed AoE steamroller and *everything* is dying that fast.

In the former situation, what the team needs is more AoE. Not more ST. Using something faster than AS is not improving the situation by any noticeable amount. It's getting in some entirely irrevelant damage before the target would have died anyway a second later.

In the latter situation, the team doesn't need ANY more damage of any kind. It's also hard to imagine what the team could use except maybe splitting in half and going different directions.

In either case, you can't balance an AT around a team that is so overpowering content. Fortunately, I can say with some confidence this just doesn't happen on 99% of the PuGs out there at ANY level. Not that they are weak teams. Just that they take somewhat longer than 3 seconds to kill everything in sight.

Not sure I buy this. MG+Smite starting from Hide is right around the same damage as AS from Hide in the same amount of time (or slightly better depending on what figure you use for average crit rate of Smite outside of Hide). But you can't sustain that. In the next 3 seconds, your DPS drops considerably. Starting from Hide with AS and *then* following with MG and Smite would be better.

Admittedly, the longer a particular fight goes, the less that initial AS matters, but that also ignores the side-effects of AS or the potential health benefits of burst killing that first foe faster... to say nothing of the oft-repeated complaint that fights are over so quickly anyway in this game.

I think it's really hard (still) to argue that a Stalker can do the same or better ST without Assassin Strike.

Yes, but in MA you can select an alternate animation for most attacks now, including Assassin Blow, in the costume editor. MA's alternate AS animation is pretty sweet looking.

Not going to argue with you about AVs, but I do make good use of DA on my Ninjitsu stalker. One thing you can't get from IOs is DDR so if you're a fan of the ITF (and I am) you're going to get slaughtered with merely soft-capped melee defense... or at least you'll need to disengage every time something hits you or else face cascade failure on a frequent basis.

Besides, without having to worry about melee defense you have a few more options for slotting when you don't need to put defense bonuses in every power you have and/or stack up tough/weave or maneuvers. SRs can easily skip it, but it is handy on sets that have little to no DDR.

Uh... why? Stalkers should be more deadly, but soloing an AV also involved endurance and survival neither of which is necessarily in the job description of a Stalker.

In any case, the devs will never consider AV soloing an aspect of AT balance. It was probably never intended to be possible. You are more likely to be nerfed if you can than buffed if you can't solo an AV.

The "and run" part.

I like it where it is. We don't need to get back to Hide because we're not ALL about Hide. Attacking from hidden is one thing. It shouldn't be the only thing.

For most people this is exactly what inherent Fitness will do. The vast majority of people took the Fitness pool. Those people have effectively been given a 5th power pool in i19. And those who didn't at least have been given a free boost to endurance, regen, run, fly, and jump speed.

In the low levels? About 9%. What you're asking for isn't a boon to new players. They would hardly notice the effect of adding one more Training Origin enhancement. This is another hand-out to the min/maxer in the upper levels where that slot will actually mean something and really... they don't need it.

Nobody needs additional enhancement slots in i19. Make some tough choices and either pick powers that can work well on the default slot or move those slots away from an existing power. Inherent Fitness is already going to make you more powerful. It's going to make everyone more powerful even if they aren't trying to be. It doesn't need a buff on top of that.

Works for me. My replies to your posts are not for your benefit anyway.