Zem

Only when you're standing there doing nothing.

I like icing... don't you? No seriously. I have had team leaders tell me not to blast on my Corruptor even. "Just heal" they'd say. By which they mean, "Just do your supporty thing, whatever the hell that is."

It's silly. You only need as much support as you need to keep people alive, to keep the enemy debuffed, or whatever. Beyond that, heck yes you should blast! Think about it. Even if you did only a THIRD of the damage of a Scrapper, don't you think if you asked that Scrapper if he'd like to be able to do 33% more damage, he'd say "Hell yes!"?

I was just gonna say, "Oh look... it's THIS thread again."

That's not how perception works. If they can see you then they can see anyone. I expect what's happening there instead is that the doppleganger was set to ambush you. Any player-targetted ambush ignores stealth because it's already aggro on you. ANY mob that has aggro on you will ignore stealth.

The hero morality mission "Clear your name" features a doppleganger of you and that one, I am pretty sure, is a location-targetted ambush when it appears because I can side-step it, and then Assassin Stirke it while it's standing there unaware of me. Though come to think of it, I have not tried standing in front of it for a bit to see if it notices me. Not sure if it has Danger Sense as I do. Its powers are not always the same as mine. I've noticed it tossing shurikens before and I don't have that epic pool.

Can't say I've ever noticed this.

I fight carnies all the time and have NEVER had this happen to me. On teams I sometimes skip ahead to the next Master Illusionist to time its phase cycle before the team gets there. I'm standing right in front of it while it phases and then hitting BU+AS to land just after it comes out of it.

Does TP Foe break Hide? I would think that it should. It certainly does cause aggro.

If only more of you played Stalkers this would never happen. NOBODY expects the Stalker to keep the team alive. Though I have been accused of plotting the untimely death of a team leader before. Pretty sure he was joking though.

Pretty sure...

What are they going to call it? Sucker Punch?

You're not kidding. Make them 8 ninjitsu stalkers and you've got 8 sets of caltrops and 8-stacked Blinding Powder. Or stacking stuns with Dark Armor or EA. Kin Melee has a 100% AoE crit with Burst from Hide. Fire Mastery has a 100% crit fireball from Hide. You wouldn't be hurting for AoE, defense, self-healing. If you were to build this as a super-team, Leadership instead of Tough/Weave for the overlapping team buffs and vengeance because, let's face it, Stalkers will still find ways to die.

So much for gimped.

Also for Rikti, it is only the probes that can see you. Course if they are mixed in with other Rikti in a spawn, they will alert everyone that you're there and then they can all attack you, even in Hide. If there are no probes in a spawn, you can pass through it without being seen.

I can't remember if Nemesis Snipers can see through Hide. It may be they just have very high perception, which is different than the other mobs which actually ignore any amount of stealth.

Does Spinning Strike crit 100% from Hide the way Burst does?

You're missing the point. It's not just true un-targetted PBAoE attacks that take PBAoE invention sets. Up to this point, all cones with radius 10ft or less and all targetted AoEs with range 10ft or less (although T-Strike might be the only one of those) have also taken PBAoE sets. This is true whether they appear on a melee AT or a ranged damage AT. So yeah, Throw Spines takes TAoE, but that's because its cone radius is greater than 10ft. Lightning Rod is the only other exception I can think of, if you want to call it that. It technically has a 60ft range, I think, but since it teleports the player there and THEN does the damage in a sphere around the player it is tagged as a PBAoE power for inventions.

Have to say, I've got my doubts as well. Last I looked, StJ's critical damage was unaffected by combo level and since Stalkers depend more on their crits than Scrappers do this is another part where they seem to come up short with StJ. The damage done at the various combo levels is proportional to the AT damage modifier, which means Scrappers are doing okay even if their 5-10% crits are not boosted by combo level. Not so with Stalkers whose lower damage modifier is meant to be made up for by the scaling team critical chance and their own controlled criticals.

Agreed. One should never underestimate this forum population's ability to freak out over nothing and then spend half the thread debating terminology.

If you slot DA for defense, it only takes one hit to soft-cap you on top of your toggle and Hide. Two hits provides a buffer against melee defense debuffs so this combo is extremely tough for the ITF.

NB/Nin is one of the easiest Stalkers to level because from level 10 you can have Caltrops and from level 18, Divine Avalanche and soft-capped melee defense. Soft-capped melee defense is nice because you can draw a group around a corner or similar obstacle that blocks line-of-sight, getting them all bunched up to make maximum use out of the short-range cones Flashing Steel and Golden Dragonfly while dodging all their melee attacks.

It's a good compromise between solid single-target DPS and a bit of AoE. Its big problem is lethal damage which people often suggest addressing with Achilles' Heel procs (since NB can slot them in several powers). Problem there is then you can't reach some of the six-slot bonuses for defense. I went for ranged defense soft-cap in my build, ignored melee, and only got part-way there for AoE defense. I have a lot of purples in my build (it's an old build) which are great for damage and recharge but no good for defense, with the one exception being the Confuse set in Blinding Powder (5% ranged def). I only have one Achilles' Heel proc and it's in Flashing Steel.

You better be smilin' when you say that.

But in all seriousness, considering I've done the ITF, twice, with a random PuG of eight stalkers, I'm going to go ahead and say, "Pick any." And that was before Incarnates. It'd probably be a cake walk these days.

If an effect is marked as "ignores enhancements" wouldn't that apply to the alpha slot as well?

MORE than three or four? That's a bit more than a level 22 Stalker should be attempting at once. Not impossible, but it sure won't be easy. The main reason is Assassin Strike. An Elec/SR Scrapper would instead have Thunderstrike already for extra AoE and knockdown/stun. That, more than the 60ish extra hit points the Scrapper has, would enable him to handle slightly larger groups than the equivalent Stalker. As a Stalker at this level, focus on smaller groups. You may be able to kick it up to +1 and take advantage of being able to take the LT out of the fight almost before it begins.

Stalkers have always been slower starters than Scrappers owing to the fact they usually take Assassin Strike and Placate where the Scrapper gets more normal attacks and typically skips the taunt. Some combos are a bit easier to start thanks to better damage mitigation from the primary. Dark Melee and Katana are very scrappy, even at low levels.

If you're intent on attacking larger groups at this level, I'd suggest a secondary build that skips Assassin Strike and takes all the normal attacks plus Aid Other / Self (or maybe Air Superiority... something that would add some damage mitigation ability).

I don't know. On teams, I just don't find that enemies spend enough time on my caltrops to bother with damage OR damage proc slotting. I want caltrops for its ability to stop an entire ambush dead in its tracks and then make them spend half their time running around at the run-speed debuff cap and the other half attacking. It's exceedingly rare for a fight to last anywhere close to 45 seconds in my experience. I really do not care about the occasional 70dmg as much as I care how much average DPS those precious enhancement slots are buying me vs. what I can get by spending them elsewhere.

Knockdown proc? NOW we're talking. Keep them IN my caltrops. Plus it's just funny. If weapon customization ever gets as far as stuff like caltrops, we're going to need some banana peels.

I think that would be a really bad idea. As annoying as having your anchor killed is, the fact of the matter is that your debuff is ready to cast again just a few seconds later. Despite my stalker joke, toggling the boss in a spawn is still often the best idea because even if it dies and your debuff goes with it, so too does a large portion of the total threat from that particular spawn. Unless it's one of those special all-boss spawns in a Task Force or story mission and someone kills the anchor first... then it's time to have words with someone.

Funny, my Stalker feels the same way. Every time I try to sink my blade into a nice big beefy boss, some debuffer is hanging a toggle around its neck!

So rude!