Zem

The funny part about this is the following: If you don't feel like you're doing much on a large team because even the bosses are being obliterated before you can Assassin Strike them (an oft repeated complaint on these forums) the truth is that being an AoE stalker on such a team wouldn't make much difference either. They are already overkilling everything. Being AoE would make you "feel" like you were doing more but in truth the enemy is so overmatched you may as well /em newspaper or something.

On teams that are not Fulcrum Shifted into next week, however, bosses do not die that quickly. A level 50 boss has about six times the health of a minion and it's really the minions that are being swept up in all those glorious orange AoE numbers. Meanwhile the bosses are left standing. Perfect place for a Stalker to contribute, even one that has just single-target damage. Take a DM stalker on an LGTF at +3/4. There will be plenty of bosses to kill and they all love negative damage.

I've also never had a problem with Stalker hate. The ones that hate probably don't invite Stalkers in the first place. On teams, even with my Nin/Nin the only coments I get about my involvement on the team are positive. The thing is, people expect so little it's easy not to disappoint them. Just don't do any of the stereotypical "bad stalker" things like stealthing glowies without being asked, hit-and-run, or just plain dying too much... and you'll be fine. Play whatever you will find fun.

That said, Elec should be a lot of fun.

Prove him wrong about what?

Anyone in this thread talking about powersets or IOs has already failed to prove him wrong. He didn't say it couldn't be done with 8 IO'd out soft-capped (or whatever) Stalkers. He said he probably wouldn't have the patience for an all-stalker MoSF done HIS way, which is picking any eight people who know how to play their character... not eight people who happen to have min/maxed their builds.

That said, I don't think I'd have the patience for a MoSF or TF just picking eight randoms (even if they all know what they are doing) from ANY AT or combination of ATs. There are many more combinations of ATs that will have great trouble with master runs than just the all-stalker team. All-stalker may just be the most obvious example.

I don't think it's turning off anti-aliasing. If it was off, the whole scene and every edge near or far would look jagged. AO is just interacting with FSAA and producing demonic offspring it seems. When I turn both on with my 5850 I don't suffer any framerate loss but I do see the weird "swimming" edge artifacts and off-colored polygons inside of things like overhead power lines. I play on a relatively low resolution (720p) so FSAA being off isn't an option for me. Can't stand the jaggies. I've been playing without AO.

I am pretty sure this is no longer the case actually. Redraw time has been removed from most animations and thus if you keep the weapon out you can chain powers within the set faster than if you have to switch. I don't know about Trick Arrow, but I know this has been done for AR.

You won't. I'd consider it unlikely they will change AS at this point. There's just not a big enough issue with the way it works now, quirky as it is.

Both.

These are not mutually exclusive qualities.

The underlying cause is not a philosophical difference of opinion. It is quite simply when YOUR technique screws up MY technique. Did you just launch five enemies clear off my Tar Patch? Did you just kick three of them away from a debuff anchor? Was I about to heal myself and the rest of the team with Transfusion off of an enemy you just launched into next Tuesday? Was I about to use a melee AoE that would have hit five enemies and you kicked three of them back out of range?

KB hate is born of such "Son of a.... !" moments that we all experience at some point when teaming with someone else who has KB. Of course some of that is to be expected and tolerated, but it can build up. If you consistently interfere with your teammates' ability to contribute then you're not exactly doing what we call "teamwork" now are you?

Yeah, but who cares? You're saying they went to extra trouble just to deny an advantage in a situation where it doesn't matter if you HAVE that advantage or not? Why not just fire it anyway if it doesn't change the outcome one way or the other?

I think it's far more likely the whole "doesn't work when you kill the target" is simply a byproduct of how they chose to implement the power. Just as is the auto-rez effect. Some of you may appreciate that this worked out to force you into some trade-off decision between maybe using Build-Up or not, but it's also a very "gamey" decision. Personally I'd prefer it if it actually made some logical sense. It's scary NOT to kill someone, but....

Enemy 1: "Grrrrrk!" *thud*
Enemy 2: "Holy cow! Fred just took a sword in the back!"
Enemy 3: "Nope, it's okay. It killed him outright. He didn't suffer."
Enemy 2: "You sure?! There's like... a lot of blood!"
Enemy 3: "Yeah, relax. It's no big deal really. So... to battle then? It's almost time for Jeopardy so let's get this over with."

Yep, the Virtue All-Stalker ITF I was on was much the same. Admittedly, we were being quite careless on the "Lag Valley" mission even including aggroing the engineers on top of the walls (yes, they can see stalkers!) Were you doing this on a masters run you'd have one person pull the valley generals FIRST and avoid the ambushes entirely. Probably the worst part of that mission would be dealing with the all-EB spawn which must be taken out entirely. The individual generals are quite easy and can be handled by an 8-AS hit-and-run.

One thing that would be pretty neat on this would be the potential for stacking some effects like Ninjitsu's Caltrops and Blinding Powder or Dark Armor's Cloak of Fear. You might end up with a surprising amount of area-control with the right builds... but then again that's not Castle's Challenge, which is about having good people, not just the "right" builds.

What I think would be more fun than a Master's ITF is an All-Stalker Speed ITF. I think it plays right to the Stalker's strength of surgical strikes. Kill just who you have to and move on. Course, there'd be tons of dying too but that's part of the fun.

Being careful? Not fun, but that's just my opinion.

When we did it on Virtue, there were many deaths but it was also the case that the team wasn't composed entirely of IO'd-out builds and weren't even all 50s (though most were). And because it wasn't a master run, people weren't exactly being careful. Most of our dying was NOT on the final encounter with Rom, though. I would even say he was probably the easiest part of the whole thing. We chomped some oranges initially to help with the auto-hit Nictus but otherwise it was surround and pound. He went down surprisingly fast, probably more due to the 31% crit rate than the Assassin Strikes. Also, because most of us were defense-based, the healer Nictus was mostly a non-factor. That's a big chunk of added hit points you don't have to deal with.

It's just that there is so much opportunity for a quick death with low hit points that Castle is probably right. It'd be very trying on everyone's patience. I really don't think I'd ever bother even trying it. An All-Stalker ITF is a lot of a fun. But a master's attempt would suck pretty much all of that fun right out of it. Oh, it'd be worth bragging rights nodoubt, but it wouldn't really prove Castle's point if the team were put together according to a plan or if it were limited to just soft-capped Stalkers or something.

He's not talking about stacking Demoralize. He's talking about stacking the effects caused by Demoralize. If each AS'ed target procs the -tohit and fear in an AoE around themselves, those effects should stack since they are coming from different casters. As has been pointing out, not much good in an 8vs1 AV fight since you only have one target to Demoralize. You'd almost have to be going up against an all-boss spawn in fact, for this to be useful, since lesser targets probably wouldn't survive the AS. Maybe LTs if you don't build-up first, but then what's the point of that?

The effects are pretty short-lived as well. So it's not crazy even if you do manage to stack them.

EA has its proponents and it's not so much terrible as SR and Ninjitsu are more popular choices. SR boasts better defense, debuff resist, and scaling resists. Ninjitsu has less defense but a better self-heal and some other active defenses like Caltrops, Blinding Powder, and Smoke Flash. Ninjitsu is probably the most popular Stalker choice for several reasons:

1. It's a Stalker exclusive set.
2. With IOs you can make up for what it lacks vs. SR in defense and knockback protection.
3. Depending on how many of the trick powers you want to take it can be a pretty loose build.

My recommendation to a scrapper player just coming over to Stalkers would be Ninjitsu paired with either Ninja Blade or Broadsword. NB strikes me as a bit more thematic for a finesse fighter. Quick strikes though each slightly less damaging than the heavier/slower Broadsword. Either will give you the self buff to defense in Divine Avalanche / Parry which together with the self-heal, defense toggles, and (at the very least) caltrops, can make for a pretty survivable and scrappy combo.

SoW Plz!

I don't buy that. First of all, soft-capping is not the same as "SR-level defense". I know you probably just mean "SR-level defense buff values" but people who don't know better will think you mean "SR-level survivability" and that is far from true. Second, the devs designed the IO system *after* ED and GDN. They designed in the rule-of-five, meaning they were thinking about stacking bonuses. They HAD to be thinking about such questions as "How much defense can someone stack?" "How much recharge can someone get?" and so forth.

I just have a hard time believing that soft-capped Blasters took anyone by surprise.

Well the point about using it after Resuscitate is probably a good one too, to be fair. And you might use it preemptively on someone who lacks mez protection before entering a fight with something like Rikti mesmerists. However this also might mean you are late getting to melee range. I typically want to be drawing a little 'x' on some hapless boss's left kidney by the time the brute rolls into aggro range. If you can juggle these activities and really don't care about the extra self heal, eh... maybe go for it after all. Depending on how many respecs you have available, experimenting might not be a big deal. There is only so much forum theorycrafting we can do here.

Neither have I. I was sort of kidding. Sort of. I've made a running joke with some of my friends and VG mates that I would take Taunt on my nin/nin stalker since she is well able to handle the aggro. That said, it would come at the expense of either Super Jump or Retsu and while I barely use Retsu anymore it does provide a storage compartment for one of my LOTG recharges at the very least. Still... I can just imagine the looks I'd get if someone saw a stalker taunt a whole group of mobs. Maybe *I* should work on a lower-cost alternate build for fun that includes it.

Yeah, I wouldn't say there is any one set that stands out as a must-have. Some people will Frankenslot by mixing and matching to get the best possible enhancement values for accuracy, damage, endurance, etc. I don't really think anything but decent accuracy and around 90ish% damage are actually must-have and you can accomplish that with either T'Death or Mako's. T'Death is slightly better on damage and Mako's is slightly better on accuracy. Similar set bonuses except for one being Melee and the other Ranged. On my nin/nin with Divine Avalanche for melee defense I pretty much just focused on Ranged defense soft-capping. I'd just play around a bit with slotting options in Mid's. It makes a good calculator for enhancements and set bonuses.

One thing I personally wouldn't do is slot Hecatomb at 50. Not just because purples are ridiculous to come by these days but because I just think it's better spent on whatever you consider your bread-and-butter normal attack. Probably a Tier 8 or 9 attack. AS, even on a soft-capped Stalker isn't a sure bet in the thick of melee on a full team so it's likely not something you will use even as often as it is up and available after the opening strike so I figure as long as it's set pretty well for damage... it's good.

Okay then relative to Stimulant, which would be your other choice, I'd say it is more useful. I tend to define useful by how often you will use a power as much as by its effect when you DO end up using it. I've taken Stimulant before on other characters and ended up not using it as much as I thought I would. By contrast there have been many times with my soft-capped Ninjitsu stalker with excellent Sha self-heal where I have had to pull away from a fight because there was a risk of being taken out by the next lucky shot and Sha was still recharging. Another self-heal would have put me immediately back into the fight.

Then take Provoke.

What set you choose for AS is more likely to depend on what set bonuses you are building for. Mako's will give you some ranged defense, if I remember right. T'Death will give you melee defense. Other than that just make sure whatever you choose is pushing the ED limit for damage.

Less needed but hardly useless. Reconstruction and Sha are on 60s base recharge timers. You'd get plenty of use out of Aid Self on a Ninjitsu prior to being soft-capped. Even after soft-capping defense, topping-off health as often as possible has the distinct advantage of preventing you from being one-shot by NPCs.

If I was going to take *any* Medicine pool power it'd be Aid Self.