Zem

It's possible City of Data is wrong. It's also possible that Scrappers are getting the Stalker scaling random critical since that is coded into the power itself (not the AT) and is not qualified by "if used by Stalker" the way the APPs have "if used by Scrapper" in the critical effect line. Would be interesting to see if that's the case.

If all they did was copy the Stalker PPPs directly over to Scrappers, that could very well be happening.

I think it would make a better MM set.

Two words: MIME WAR!

You said "ancillary pools" which is what the hero epics are called. Ancillary Power Pools = APP. Villain epics are Patron Power Pools (PPP). The ordinary power pools are just... "power pools". The ordinary pool attacks like Air Sup and Boxing should crit for either Stalkers or Scrappers. When they ported the APPs from Scrappers to Stalkers and the PPPs from Stalkers to Scrappers, it seems they did not add criticals for the AT they were being ported to. Hence, Scrappers only crit from the hero APPs and Stalkers only crit from the villain PPPs. Again, that's what CoD says. I haven't tested them all personally or seen if there are any changes on beta.

The one exception that I know of is Stalker Blaze Mastery, which has full crits on every power that does damage in the set, even the hold/immob (which is something even the villain PPPs don't do)

According to City of Data, Scrappers crit from the APPs but not the PPPs.

Hmm.. haven't checked the beta on this, but on Live currently the only APP that crits for Stalkers is Blaze Mastery, which crits for full on every power including the hold and immob. It's either a mistake... or an experiment.

In most typical situations you face enemies of differing hit point totals and so you want both ST and AoE damage on the team. It being a team, it doesn't matter if everyone on the team can do both. That said, the title of "damage king" usually refers to someone able to post up the biggest total damage numbers in the shortest time and yeah, that's going to be those ATs that have access to a lot of AoE.

OP is also seriously misrepresenting the Stalker inherent by mentioning "30ish" percent criticals on a full team. In practice, you don't get anywhere close to this over the course of a mission or Task Force. 31% is the maximum and will only be your average crit rate if you can somehow manage the feat of keeping SEVEN other teammates within 30 feet of you at ALL times. Needless to say... that isn't happening unless those seven are running on the other seven PCs in your eight-box CoH setup and are on auto-follow.

A much more reasonably likely figure for a Stalker's average crit rate would be something in the 18-22% range, including both random and controlled crits. Good, but barely enough to match (let alone exceed) a Scrapper's higher base damage modifier and then only if you ignore the usual disparity in AoE potential between the two ATs or the fact that on average the Stalker will lose somewhat more performance to deaths than the Scrapper will owing to the Stalker's lower hit points.

Oh dear.

I do that when I am rolling back, not when I am installing a new driver over an old one from the same damned company. The installer should be capable of cleanly upgrading. If it isn't, then they need to seriously fire their driver team and get someone who has half a clue about software development (or at the very least stop giving the job of creating the installer utility to the summer intern).

Really. You should be able to get a morality mission drop even with all the fame meters filled. Works this way for me every time. Unless the tip systems works differently for you than for everyone else, I can't imagine why you're unable to get a morality drop.

So does brawl. Stealth only prevents a mob from aggroing on you by sight alone. If you punch one, it will aggro and then your stealth, suppressible or not, has absolutely no effect whatsoever on keeping that aggro.

Devs hate heroes?

So what you're saying is there is actually, maybe, just possibly ONE area in which villains have an advantage over heroes?

Oh yeah...we need to put a stop to that RIGHT NOW!

The BAF.

Yeah, I need to give this a shot. Is the recharge rate enhanceable on the Tier5s or is this one stuck at 90s like Judgement?

The beta forums are account-locked. The rest of the forums are not. You can read, but not post, without logging in. Not that Ice Armor is a big secret new powerset or anything...

Fortunately you can tone down the graphics a bit by using darker shades for the Ice. Still not a fan of Ice-cube-man, personally. At least with Ninja Blade you can eventually get the Vanguard katana and make it a pretty close approximation of an Ice blade.

Probably because Stalkers ARE Scrappers with hidey powers.... and less hit points... and less damage.

Because they can't get rid of the double critical problem, so it would end up being 200% crit with a slim chance of 400% crit.

Eight Stalkers. One team.

/thread

Fair enough. On closer inspection, it turns out the actual creation rate of Blasters as a ratio of all heroes is more like 27.5% in the data that BaBs gave us. This is what the 16.14% of all ATs compares to. If you still think this is wrong, why don't you look over the post yourself and tell us all where you think BaBs lied to us?

If you stop playing a character because it's not fun anymore at level 50 you are going to either delete it or just leave it around gathering dust or, as you say, serving as enhancement storage or something. Either way, it's because the character wasn't fun to play anymore. So regardless of whether the data is showing us real actively played characters or just characters that exist on active accounts, the shift from 1st to 3rd place is an indication of how much people are shifting away from Blasters. They are, but not by much. It doesn't really make sense to believe that if someone is twice as likely to delete a Blaster than a Scrapper, they are for no good reason three or four times as likely to side-line a Blaster than a Scrapper. Not if the reason for both is the same: Loss of interest.

Admittedly, it would be better to sample the participation in iTrials to decide how popular/good Blasters are at level 50. If that shows a serious shift then there is indeed a problem worth looking into. But as with anything you have to take a sufficiently large sample. Most of the time, for example, I only see one Stalker on an iTrial. Me. Last week I was on a 24-person BAF with four! Couldn't believe my eyes. Hasn't happened since.

Course, the leader was a Stalker.

Arcana's AT Popularity Analysis uses data released by Back Alley Brawler. It's admittedly a few years old by now, but it shows Blasters being created close to 30% of all new heroes and 16% of all ATs, period. The highest number at the time. The "Active since..." data shows around 24% of all heroes were Blasters. Again, the highest number, but less than the 28-29% creation rate for heroes.

I suppose you could claim it's out of date and recent changes have knocked Blasters entirely out of the running except...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ersaries-today

That's where we got the most recent info about level 1-49 numbers. Blasters drop to third at level 50, which while it supports the idea that endgame Blasters drop in popularity that "drop" is only to third place. Third out of 14 ATs? That's what you call a problem? Can my favorite AT have that "problem"? Pretty please?

We're not talking about some people here. We're talking about nearly a third of all new heroes created and around a quarter of all active heroes across all levels. They can't have numbers like that and be totally abandoned post level-40 as some of you here are suggesting. If so few people are playing Blasters post-40 then what are they playing and where did THOSE characters come from? That would have to be reflected in the created and active-across-all-levels numbers too. They don't spring into existence at level 40 or 50 when people dump their Blasters.

The degree to which people are abandoning Blasters was overblown due to a misunderstanding that was cleared up earlier in this thread. They are still being abandoned somewhat more often than others but not by much. And you might expect that from the fact they are created more than anyone else. Is it a problem that people think Blasters suck or is it that they just weren't as super-amazing as they thought they might be but are still good enough to play more than a lot of other ATs? What matters is how many people stick with them in the end and that number is absolutely very healthy from the available stats we've seen.

Oh sure. People even play Stalkers. But look at how many, man. Doms are a lot better than they once were. Stalkers even got some love. But neither is up to the level of popularity as Blasters. Not even close. Doms and Stalkers used to compete for the title of "least played non-epic AT". Sympathy for the poor Blaster? Don't make me laugh.