Zem

I'm curious what the numbers work out to on tohit, defense, and what-not with a 20 level difference. Debuff and Mez magnitude and duration will be crippled into uselessness with a 0.01 multipler thanks to the purple patch. Not sure about tohit. If you got everyone to the defense hard-cap... would it even matter?

*heads to the roof to light the Arcana-signal*

edit: nm... Thanks Deacon.

I don't think I ever had crashing problems with my 5850/i7-860/win7(64) combo in CoH on ANY driver. It wasn't until I "upgraded" to the 6970 that I started having the screen freeze in CoH. And I have still had a couple freezes with 11.4. Made sure to do the clean uninstall, safe mode, driver sweeper, etc. too. It's infrequent enough that the game is playable. I can sometimes go for hours with no crash.

At the risk of invoking a Standard Code Rant, is a weapon model really that much work? You could practically take some of the existing sword models and just lengthen the handle and make it work with katana. Or is this little bit of model work followed by weeks of pain-staking hand-animation done by Tibetan monks or something?

At the very least if they are going to be charging actual money for this stuff they need better descriptions to let some of us know that just saying "sword" in the item description still means "yes, we screwed katana YET AGAIN."

Yeah, I made this mistake. I didn't follow beta and I thought to myself, "Self... should I check the forums to make SURE they didn't screw Katana yet again before plunking down a hard-earned token on this?? Surely (Shirley?) for a set that actually COSTS you something they would have something that works for all the weapon sets, right? Right?!"

Guess I've learned my lesson.

Which is fantastic, but all I said was "good", not "best". I'm well aware there are stupidly powerful AT/powerset combos in the game. Thanks. I also see plenty of runners in the escapee phase of every BAF I've ever been on so there are no shortage of targets despite the fact there are some people who can camp doors effectively.

And I may have misspoke about the LT. I can't remember if it's LTs or bosses. I mean attacking the strongest member of the run group with a Hide crit. The others are trash easily swept up. They aren't making it past the team at the checkpoint.

You don't see a lot of stalkers because there are not a lot of stalkers to see. Not because people are actively refusing to invite them to leagues. I've not started ANY of the trials my Stalker has been on and it's never been a problem getting invited. I'm usually the only one in the league because, quite frankly, that's about the ratio of Stalker population to everyone else. Or worse.

There is precious little, if anything, in this game that is needed. What you really mean is "optimal" and yeah, like I said, Stalkers are not optimal. I'm not saying they can't use some more buffing. But they contribute on teams just fine. Contribution is not a binary thing. That's the point I was making when you replied. Some people seem to think that doing a few percentage points less damage than an equivalent Scrapper means you're just taking up a team spot. I'm saying that isn't exactly what I'd call "thinking".

I'm no expert on Brutes but isn't perma-double-rage something like +200% global recharge and only available to SS Brutes? You're hardly excluding just Stalkers with this statement if these are your standards of what is "meaningful" contribution on a team.

Seriously... this HAS to be a weapon customization option, devs.

Is it ever worthwhile? Does it really make up for not having a Fireball that can 100% crit from Hide? Does it work out often enough that you don't get hit while executing all those pseudo-pet attacks and can still crit with AS at the end?

Yep. Beat me to it. Here is the text from Swap Ammo:

It's not a non-issue. But it isn't a big deal, either. Just because I don't have trouble getting teams on my stalker, that doesn't mean people are lining up to have me on their teams. I very rarely get direct tells to join random teams on a Stalker like I do on a corruptor. Still, just by monitoring global channels, there is usually some team forming willing to take anybody on.

I'm on Virtue and while I won't say there are never slow times, I can usually get on a team a lot quicker than that.

To be honest, I started a reply to your previous post but gave up. I wasn't sure there was a point. I see that kind of argument on these forums all too often. That being the idea that any character could possibly be "useless" or just "take up a team spot" as you put it. This is just absurd. I usually see it in numbers-heavy min/max threads where the people involved are of the mindset that anything less than optimal is "useless".

The truth is that Stalkers are just "less than optimal". They are not nearly as fragile as most people think. They are not as far behind Scrappers on survivability OR damage as most people think... but they ARE behind. They are not enough behind to be "useless" however and if you have not managed to find a use on a team for your stalker then the problem is, to be blunt, you.

I play my Stalkers blueside quite a bit and have not only had zero trouble getting teams, but I have gotten complimented while on those teams by the sorts of people who previously held the above-mentioned opinions about how "useless" stalkers were supposed to be.

Admittedly, you'll have to try harder and build better than you would with another AT, but to me it's worth it and a fun challenge.

Stalkers are actually quite good at the BAF escape phase since the runner groups are often spaced far enough apart you can usually be back in Hide after each one. Don't bother with AS. Just unload a Hide crit on a LT and let your friends add some AoE splash damage. Or if you have a decent AoE of your own, attack the whole run group. I do that too if Fireball is ready.

As for the Rikti crash site... funny story. I was raiding the mothership with my Nin/Nin stalker before Incarnates, before IOs, and before the Stalker upgrade. In fact, my favorite trick was splitting off from my team on the last pylon and setting up to solo a bomb grate on the far side away from the raid. Granted, there was a Tier 9 and some inspirations involved back then, but it was still a lot of fun to be able to do that on a stalker and it got me some very suprised tells from teammates when they saw the "bomb planted" message on their screens very quickly after the last pylon dropped. It didn't work every time, but it worked most of the time. Usually a function of how many Rikti Magi I managed to aggro while tearing down the vent.

In my experience, trials take pretty much anyone. They are usually more interested in getting the league filled than being picky about min/maxing. And I've yet to be on a failed trial done that way either.

This would accomplish very little. For most Stalkers, Assassin Strike outside of Hide is terrible, terrible DPA and wouldn't be used even IF it were 100% reliable.

First thing: You mentioned Praetoria. Or as I like to call it, "Ambush-aetoria". Seriously, the mission design is all about being ambushed repeatedly and often. This makes having Caltrops a VERY nice thing early on. Say by level 10. When you hear an ambush coming, find a corner to hide behind, drop trops, and let them all crash into it. Then pop around the corner and hit them all from Hide with Shadow Maul (or maybe Smite the lieutenant). If you do that right you'll get a nice Hide crit at least since you probably won't get an AS off on an ambush very reliably.

Shadow Maul: This is considered a poor performer as an AoE but that's relative to other AoEs in other sets. From a strictly numbers point of view, Shadow Maul is not worth using against a single opponent but IS actually pretty good DPA if used against even just two enemies. It's an improvement over attacking those two enemies one-at-a-time and that makes it worth using. In situations where you have packed enemies and can hit three or four it's of course even better.

Boxing: Do not slot or use this power. Very poor performer. You want Shadow Punch and Smite. Leave Boxing at the default slot. Pick up Shadow Punch. Need room for Shadow Punch? Get rid of...

Smoke Flash: Terrible. Terrible power. Solo this is nothing more than a very short duration sleep with a very long recharge. On teams, this becomes an "attack my friends!" power. It does not grant you a free critical as does the single-target Placate power. So nearly worthless.

Body Mastery: This is just my opinion, but I've always thought BM looked pretty uninteresting on paper. You want more recovery, regen, and endurance? Get accolades and IOs. But inventions can't buy you a ranged targeted AoE that crits 100% of the time from Hide. Blaze Mastery can. Alternatively, Soul Mastery is very thematic for a Dark Melee character. Dark Blast becomes another ST attack in your attack chain. Coolest looking Hold in the game. Shadow Meld for temporary defense boost in "Oh S----!" situations.

Touch of Fear: I understand this has its uses but you're going to already have a lot of mitigation with tohit debuffs, caltrops, blinding powder, Retsu and/or Shadow Meld for emergencies... you may not find enough situations where you need to use this. Maybe take it and later respec out as you complete your build, making room for other powers.

If you're seriously discussing AT "balance" at the damage cap then you've already descended into absurdity. You can talk about the damage difference on paper at that point, but give me a situation where anyone could possibly CARE about the difference when they are rolling around at the damage cap and obliterating everything in their way already. Farming maybe?

Even on a team that is moving together from spawn to spawn you are still not going to be within 30 feet of ALL of your teammates ALL of the time unless they are on autofollow. 31% crit rate is NEVER going to be your average crit rate for a mission.

Stalkers are melee combatants. They don't have the luxury of positioning themselves in the middle of their team and then attacking enemies from range. They have to go where their targets are, not where their teammates are most grouped up to give them their bonus crit rate.

Put it this way: If you're the sort of person who is going to care about the performance difference between EM and other primaries then you've already chosen the wrong AT. Might as well stick to your concept and see what happens. You may like it.

EM is not all that bad. Yeah, it doesn't get a full crit on Total Focus, but that's because if it did, it would do more damage than Assassin Strike. It still hits like a truck regardless of it not getting a full crit. Second, people often whinge about how ET is but a shadow of its former self. Thing is, it's former self was a monster. It's still a fantastic attack with its current stats. You are not going to feel like you're dealing poor ST damage even if someone armed with a spreadsheet can prove that MA does slightly more.

That said, Kinetic Melee has a very Energy Melee'ish feel to it if you're willing to stretch concept a bit. The visual effects are all about the glowy swooshy energy auras around your hands even if they are not quite the pink pom-poms of Energy Melee.

Do what you do best. A single-target focused Stalker is best used against high-value targets like bosses or particularly annoying lieutenants. Stealth into the middle of the spawn, find your boss, and time your Assassin Strike to land as the rest of the team is engaging the spawn. Your ST damage plus the team's AoE splash should have the boss down quickly whereas with no one focused on that boss it will typically still be standing after the AoE barrage from the team. The only time that is not true is if the team is greatly overpowered vs. the content (think fulcrum-shifted AoE vs. +0 opponents) in which case there is little anyone could do to add to that.

If the situation is less controlled than that, I tend to try to play interceptor. I keep an eye on the ranged teammates and see if they are drawing aggro not controlled by someone else. If a melee goes after one of them, I intercept him either with a KU/KD attack or caltrops.

Similar to the idea with bosses, looking out for things like sappers, surgeons, and devouring earth buff drops (cairn, quartz, etc.) and getting them dead quickly is well worth doing. I find that more often than not I am the only person focusing on such things as everyone else is too busy with their AoE, AoE, AoE....

Make a macro button for them:

/macro CIM targetcustomnext Surgeon
/macro DE "targetcustomnext Cairn $$ targetcustomnext Quartz"

etc.

While none of this is stuff that other ATs can't do, you'd be surprised how few people make it their mission to do it. The old adage applies, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like nail." Those on your team with AoE damage potential are going to use it first. From what I've seen... even if the team is already overkilling the minions and such.

To be fair, if you are talking to them on the beta forums about stuff that is being tested in the beta then you probably have a good chance of being heard. So you can talk about SJ or Energy Aura's revamp or Ice Armor for Stalkers. But yeah... good luck talking about overall Stalker balance issues. That's not what they are spending their time on now.

Wrong.