Zem

What Crime said. You're never unhittable (well... unless you're using a power that puts you in an unaffected state )

Your friend's tohit debuffs will only help your soft-capped toon when the enemy has +tohit buffs. Accuracy is another story though. Enemies with accuracy above 1.0x will have a slightly higher than 5% chance to hit you no matter how much defense or tohit debuffs are in play. As you'll see in Arcana's guide, higher level and higher ranking opponents get accuracy buffs. It isn't until they are MUCH higher level than you that they get tohit buffs as well.

There are Shield Stalkers everywhere, but you can't see them hiding behind their shields.

Most PuGs I've joined tend to be beefy enough to handle Romulus with just a "go get him!" tactic, but I've also been on those that unravel, usually when the ambush hits. Some things you can try if you feel the need to be careful:

1. Clear the entire area around Romulus's platform, including the two raised platforms to the left and right sides filled with 5th. This way is Rom runs, he doesn't drag you into more aggro.

2. Have everybody stand down on the ground on the left side of the big platform (your left as you are facing Romulus's temple front... i.e. "west side"). Also, south of the freestanding columns. Provided no one steps up on the platform during the fight or wanders north of the columns, you may not even trigger the ambushes while fighting Romulus. At least, it worked the last time I tried it. It's important to stress that people don't wander though or the ambushes could trigger. Keep everybody in that area and off the platform while you kill Rom.

3. If you think you won't be able to handle Rom and his 3 puffballs all in one group, bring at least one taunter tank/brute and a couple people with immobilize powers. Rom can be immobilized. His puffballs can't. Glue him down and then taunt away his puffballs. Not too far, but far enough to get the healer out of range of healing Rom. Too far and they will snap back to him, taunt or no taunt.

4. If you ARE fighting Rom and his nictus friends together, remember that the more of you there are (pets included) that have low defense, the more healing Rom will receive off of your team. Defense buffs are good for nullifying the healer. If it can't hit you, it can't heal Rom. It uses a modified Twilight Grasp that hits everybody within 80' and then heals in a smaller AoE around the nictus essence itself.

The AoE damage nictus uses an autohit sunless mire that hits for over 600 if you don't resist negative. Bring res buffs or just lots of healing if you have defense-based meleers on the team. This thing will be trouble for them otherwise. The summoning nictus, while on lowest difficulty may not present much threat to most team members does have one annoying effect. If it summons all its buddies right next to Rom, each of them fuels his Phalanx Fighting ability and his defense goes through the roof. Keep AoEing them down in order to let your team make progress killing Rom.

Sarchasm? Others have posted pretty much the same thing and been entirely serious about it.

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I do agree that the idea of soldiers with swords being able to go toe to toe with level 50 heroes and villains is just ludicrous. The EB monsters at least make sense.

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This isn't new though. If you create a character who is human and natural origin... this is what you are. That's been with the game forever.

You ARE fighting through an awful lot of them, and I think that's the justification. They may be mundanes, but there's an army of them vs. your 6-8 supers.

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Howling twilight is a click instead of a toggle but it has an 80 foot range and is autohit, so I wouldn't worry about AV's wandering around to where you couldn't use it. I mean, Jesus, how far off do your AV's wander?

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Sorry, I should have set that comment in a separate paragraph. I was talking about the other toggle debuffs, specifically Enervating Field. You can anchor that on an AV and not worry that's he's running around, which can't be said for Dark's -res, which lives in Tar Patch.

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And even though it isn't as perma-able a -regen as lingering rad, /dark also has stacking -regen from your twilight grasp and from your pet fluffy's twilight grasp as well...

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True, but each TG is a tenth of the -regen that one HT/LR provides. Overall, Rad will have more -regen on the target more of the time and won't spend its rez to do so. That's a nice-to-have but it's not a deal breaker and /Dark brings other things to the table. That's why I said it "edges" out Dark in AV fights. I don't think it does so by a huge margin and /Dark is muich better, in my opinion, in most other PvE situations.

I used to be quite a /Rad junkie until I played my first /Dark. Imagine that on a Controller.

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Standard code rant applies, but it doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal to me. They'd just have to add 3 new damage types, Ranged_Damage, Melee_Damage, and AOE_Damage and 3 new resistance types to go with them.

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Not quite. The way the engine works now each damage effect has only ONE damage type associated with it. If a power does both smashing and cold damage, for example, these are separate lines in the list of effects for the power. If you simply added ranged damage as a damage type... what would you do with it?

If a power does 'x smashing and 'y' cold today, how would you add ranged damage? You either have to change the engine to allow multiple damage types per component ('x' ranged/smash + 'y' ranged/cold ) or you'd have to split the power's damage into the added comopnent ('x' smash + 'y' cold + 'z' ranged) such that the total damage remains the same.

Problem with the latter method is it drastically changes the balance of power. Someone who had 50% smash and 50% cold was taking 50% of the total damage from that power is now taking 50% of the 2/3 that is smash + cold and 100% of the ranged damage (assuming they do not have both typed and positional resistance).

Can of worms.

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Uhhh, I would really like to see where you find /rad to be so much better. I am looking at stats on City of Data and I am just not seeing such a huge imbalance. (for AV's I mean)

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Rad has a few advantages. The main thing most people would point out is the -regen from Lingering Rad, which can easily be made perma. Howling Twilight does the same -regen (which many people DON'T know) but has a longer recharge and, of course, costs you the use of it as a rez power if someone should die after you've just used it as a -regen debuff. Toggle debuffs are also easier to keep applied if the AV is mobile during the fight.

Personally, I don't think that constitutes a terrifically huge advantage. Both are great sets and I'm a fan of both, having played them each to 50. I won't dispute that more people think of Rad when they are loading up for AV hunting, but "common" sense isn't necessarily always good sense.

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I was on a team once that stealth-ran that mission. I have no idea how they did it; the two Tanks told the rest of us to wait at the door and two minutes later, BAM mission complete. It was wonderful.

I'm guessing Invis and teleport had something to do with that

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Tanker/Brute "stealth" technique: a slow jog, middle finger extended, toothy grin, followed by smashing crystals.

Mission Complete.

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No breath of fire? But... But I like spitting fire... I can spit fire in their eye and they won't see crap. How's that? How about AS be spitting out one huge ball of fire? Mmm fire/nin

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Only if a disembodied voice says, "TOASTY!" when you kill someone with that.

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dark/rad is the better team player

rad/dark is better solo

my 2 cents

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/Rad only edges /Dark in AV fights and not by much. I feel much more in control with my /Dark corr than my /Rad corr in most other team PvE situations. I haven't tried a Rad/Dark yet but it's a strong contender for my next character. I am trying the Defender version now and even that is pretty sweet... but it's no corruptor.

[sarchasm]But... you can't hide behind a bloody great flaming sword!!1[/sarchasm]

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AaO is obvious but GC and PF are team based powers and require you to fight close for them to work the way they are supposed to.

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You mean like the stalker INHERENT scaling critical ability?

Stalkers ARE team players and the last round of stalker buffs should have made that obvious. I'm not saying that some powers wouldn't need to be modified but that is always the case when you port a secondary to stalkers. Hide is going to replace something. Taunt auras are going to go away (e.g. Reconstruction for RttC in Willpower). etc.

Stalkers may not be "on the front lines" in most cases (although that is pretty much how I play my nin/nin) but they are not off in some far corner either. They are flankers, opportunists, and finesse fighters in battle. They aren't off on their own when the team is fighting.

Not the good ones anyway.

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Because you can't hide behind a shield....

duh.

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You can't hide behind regenerating flesh or sparkling bolts of electricity either but that didn't stop them from porting those sets. Fact is, the secondary doesn't HAVE to explain how the stalker hides. Hide had to go somewhere and they decided to put it into the secondary rather than (as they probably should have) making it an inherent power like Domination.

Super Reflexes doesn't exactly describe how one hides either. Movement is almost the opposite of stealth as the human eye perceives motion better than it picks out stationary objects. You could say the SR stalker is better at ducking for cover when no one is looking, but that's kind of thin too.

Shields, in fact, make MORE sense than any of those three if you allow that the shield is a magical or technological cloaking device. The gem, energy, and negative energy shield customs look pretty good there.

As far as that goes, stick the dark shield on a dm/dark scrapper and tell me that doesn't look stealthy (if you can tell what it looks like at all through dark armor )

In general I'd say go with enhancing your strengths. Add resistance if you've got resistance buffs and/or damage debuffs. Add defense if you have defense buffs and/or tohit debuffs.

There are exceptions though. Any amount of +recovery or +rech is nice to have. Same for KB protection.

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I can't think of a single SF/TF in the high end game that doesn't require some sort of debuffing. Well maybe the ITF if you don't mind it taking forever.

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The LGTF doesn't require debuffing. In the absence of debuffs however, you need enough damage to put him down before he's able to use Unstop a second time. He's going to resist smashing, lethal, and energy pretty well even outside of Unstop so you better have a LOT of it if you're not bringing debuffs or buffs that will increase damage output.

I like to always have an HVAS or Shivan in reserve if I happen to end up on a team that lacks the oompf to finish an AV.

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I've seen 100% to Smashing, Lethal and Energy myself, with pretty much all of the other damage types in the high 90s. What kind of Corruptor was it?

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Yeah, I forget all the ones that hit 100. I know lethal is, because on my Ninja Blade stalker I get to see "Assassin Strike!" with no damage numbers floating up from Honoree, at which point I put my patron dark blast on auto and kick back to watch the show.

Also, isn't it true that resistance and debuff resistance are the same? So you can't debuff his 100% s/l/e resist but you can chip away at 90% fire (or whatever). Or have I got that all wrong? I only remember using Power Analyzer on him once and I forget if anyone was using -res on him.

I believe he gets 100% smashing/lethal resist so if any of your damage dealers were relying on that, they were effectively out of the fight while he was in Unstop.

There's also something to do about the person who has the hamidon sparkly aura from the previous mission. That person needs to be hitting Honoree I think, to help with his Unstop resist. Honestly, haven't paid much attention to that part.

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1) Wide Range: Which means that just like regular missions and just like saucer raids, you get level 35s who feel entitled to have half the team be level 50s, because they feel entitled to be sidekicked. So recruiting for one, once you get the four level 35-45s, grinds to halt as you try to recruit more 50s.

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Being *able* to invite down to level 35s is, to me, worth the price of having to take some care in building the team such that there are not too many lackeys. Other than the greater potential quantity of lackeys around, I don't find much difference in *quality* between a 35 and a 45-46 lackeyed up to 50 on a team. Unless it's a Kin corruptor/controller maybe.

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4) Few Mezzers: But tons of mobs with AoE heals, and every lieutenant or above is immune to mez. Combine this with ...

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Legitimate gripe. I tend to avoid this one on my controllers if they rely too heavily on hard controls. Soft controls and debuffs though... that's what works on these guys, and works pretty well.

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5) Melee Centric: Did you know that Arachnos Soldiers are weak to melee? Cimerorans tear my Bane Spider character up, even on lowest difficulty settings. The stacking -def(all) from all those spammed Broadsword attacks makes Cimeroran Traitors just about the only enemies that threaten my bots/FF mastermind, too. Let me guess: you're a tank with a resistance-based primary?

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Don't know about him, but I have lost count of how many times my Nin/Nin *stalker* has run the ITF. And hands down the most fun run I've EVER had was the all-stalker ITF we did on Virtue. I love it. Admittedly, Ninja Blade's Divine Avalanche helps stay ahead of the -def in melee, but it can be a real problem if I get ganged up on by nictus (nictii?) in the 1st and 2nd missions. Still, it's fun and keeps me on my toes. Can't get tied up in a long animation too near a group of Cims or it can be lights out quick.

Overall, I think the ITF manages to be a decent challenge to the average team without being so difficult as to encourage specific team compositions or the idea there are "must haves" on the team roster.

I'll also agree with the notion that the 3rd mission desperately needs an overhaul. I just don't understand why it seems to be rocket science. Get rid of the bloody engineers on the walls (they almost never come into play and serve only to add more lag just by being there) and remove about half of the wandering patrols. There are more than enough spawned ambushes to fill the screen with Romans.

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i heard the best thing about fearsome stare is the -to hit, is that true? if so should slotting be different?

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I suppose it's arguable, but I tend to agree that -tohit is better. Depends on how you use it and how you fight generally. If you are AoEing a group, then the terror effect is repeatedly being interrupted, allowing them to fight back, in which case it's best they are under the maximum allowable tohit debuff. Bosses and fear-resistant foes are also still affected by tohit debuffs even if they are not affected by the terror.

Extending the fear duration is only useful if you can leave the terrified foes alone until you're ready to take them out. So it works for single-target killers and for secondary aggro / ambushes you just want to put on ice until you're ready for them.

Generally though, I find the -tohit is more valuable. With decent +defense from powers and IOs, an opening Fearsome Stare can effectively put me over the soft-cap against most enemies, which also means a lot less chance of being mezzed. As a Dark/Dark, it's true though that you have a lot of -tohit to stack, so as long as you are not typically taking large group alpha strikes yourself, you might ignore -tohit in FS. On the other other hand... it looks pretty cool to step up and terrify a whole group into cowering before you, and the team definitely takes notice, assuming it doesn't get you killed.

Well... I guess they notice that too, but it's not as cool looking.

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I for one love caltrops. It is a great power on a stalker. I don't use them to run away though. I use them to cause chaos, get the the AI running in and out of melee range and attacking less it adds a lot to survivability while I work on getting soft caped.

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Also great for stopping an ambush train in its tracks and bunching them up for AoE destruction by the team. Hilarious place for the Armageddon knockdown proc as well. It's no ice slick at that point, but it knocks a few over now and then making it look like they actually tripped on the trops.

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Did it used to? Is it sorta just a copypaste error from the fear in Dark Miasma from long ago? (that does tohit debuff, right?)

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I'm gonna go with copy-paste error. Fearsome Stare is similar but does tohit debuff instead of damage. Having damage in Terrify always struck me as odd. It's especially odd when my Mind dom terrifies a bunch of crates in a Mayhem mission and they explode.

I always imagine that when Michael Bay dies he'll be sent to hell where his eternal torment will be making movies with a single camera... which is bolted to the floor.

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I am looking to find the global channel on a server that's not Freedom, Virtue, Victory nor Justice that has the biggest amount of people who like to just charge!

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In the interests of full disclosure, you should all know that Smurphy is only looking elsewhere because he's already gotten everybody of each of the above servers killed on one of his mad SF/TFs.

It's a trap!

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LR does not suppress hide.. so a good chain is BU+LR and then Thunderstrike. Caltrops WILL break Hide however.

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No, it won't. Just like LR, it will gain you aggro if it hits anything but you won't lose Hide unless something you aggroed hits you.