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Difficult to define "good". Once IO'd out I think you'd find both perform similarly. One downside of SR is that no matter how good your defense, you WILL want a self-heal because what gets past your defenses tends to hurt... a lot. You are incredibly more survivable with high defense AND a self-heal than just with high defense. Fortunately, this is about to get easier for SR when you'll be able to take Aid Self without first taking Aid Other or Stimulant.

Still, Ninjitsu with a bit more effort can be soft-capped and has a great uninterruptible heal. It lacks knockback protection but for PvE this is as easy as slotting a KB IO in Hide which will protect you from probably 80% of all knockback.

In my opinion the one power that puts Ninjitsu out of reach of SR is Caltrops. Tremendously effective damage-mitigation. Forget the damage it can do. This is a one-slot wonder. Put a single slow IO in it and you'll floor most enemies' run speed keeping them on the caltrops patch as long as possible. While on it, they will only alternate between attacking you and trying to run away. That equals MUCH less incoming damage.

Blinding Powder is second most useful, but also skippable. It's nice to dust a spawn with it prior to attacking because it will debuff their tohit, effectively adding to your defense. And it won't aggro them. Might even confuse a few. But by the time you can get this power you'll probably be close to soft-capping with IOs anyway. It gets better at 50 when you can slot the Purple Confuse set for really great bonuses and a proc that makes it much more likely to confuse enemies, especially if they are bunched together. But again... skippable. I find I don't even use this as often as it is available, but I DO still use it. Usually when things are going from bad to worse.

The nice thing about both Caltrops and Blinding Powder is that they can help your teammates as much as yourself. That's rare and valuable on a stalker. Same can't be said for Smoke Flash. Its AoE placate does not put you in Hide so you get no extra critical from using it. Solo, this amounts to a short duration, very long recharge AoE sleep. On a team it is a "attack my teammates!" power. Skip it. It's so bad it's now available as a temp recipe to anyone.

I'd probably give the edge to DM, but that said I had no trouble getting an MA/Nin stalker to 50 and it didn't really feel weak on teams. Caveat: My DM stalker is only 32 so far. Love the animations more on the MA, especially the alternate Assassin's Blow. You might want to consider Kinetic Melee too. Good ST damage and a nice AoE Burst that, at least for now, crits 100% of enemies it hits from Hide. Nifty Build Up recharge mechanic in the T9 attack, though at the expense of getting a critical hit with it. This is why my DM is side-lined. Working up a KM now and not sure which I want to push forward. KM is more fun to look at but the DM hits like a truck with that negative damage.

Or when the goalpost has gone into hypothetical land? We were talking about content that doesn't even exist anymore. You'll notice Shubbie said, "IF". IF they decide to make truly challenging content again. Problem is... there isn't. Like it or don't, this game isn't being geared towards the min/max end of the power spectrum and so a lot of this theorycrafting about Blaster performance going on in this thread is quite likely irrelevant.

Who DOES go to that trouble? Think about it. If you were even a little bit right then Blasters would have trouble finding teams AND they'd have trouble soloing. All that has been claimed in this thread. So why are people playing Blasters if there's no part of the game they don't have trouble playing? Because they ARE playing Blasters. PvP? Go on... make me laugh.

How about this: People are playing Blasters because they are fun to play and they are good ENOUGH to play in any content this game offers. Because, yes, most teams out there DO just grab anyone available. I ought to know. I play a Stalker and I get on teams quite easily. So it can't be that hard.

Maybe if this day comes that the devs decide to take this game in a min/max direction and only develop content like the original LRSF, people WILL be dropping their Blasters in droves and then you'll actually have a point. But today the inconvenient truth is that no matter what performance stats you can throw up here, people are simply quite happy playing AND teaming with Blasters. You are standing in the middle of a field on a bright sunny day shouting "The sky is falling!" Why should the devs listen?

I don't think it should ever have zero interruption time but I favor a very short interruption time. Enough to force you to set yourself before using it, which prevents using it as a jousting attack. Cut it down to at least 1s interrupt time, preferably 0.5s. It's value currently is greatly diminished by being very difficult to use mid-combat on a team, even with Placate. It can be used, but usually only by defense-based Stalkers and even then not with 100% success. Its damage is not SO much more than, say, an Eagle's Claw crit, that it deserves to be THAT unreliable.

In the past, I've suggested also an increase in waylay damage to make it more usable outside of Hide, but... I'm reconsidering. I'd settle for just the interrupt time reduction and not any increase in waylay damage. Most sets don't need another good ST attack for scrapping and the sets that do don't deserve one due to how good their AoE is.

And I'd at least like a few of the longer AS animations reduced to 3s, if not 2.67s to match Kinetic Melee. I don't think any of that would really turn AS into a scrapping tool. The AoE heavy sets might want to use it outside of Hide but it still wouldn't be very good DPA at scale 2.5.

People weren't extra picky on the LRSF because they were "estimating" anything. They'd tried and failed the LRSF enough to decide that they should be more careful on, at the very least, pick-up groups to give themselves a good chance of success. It became standard practice to either stock the team with multiple -regen debuffers in addition to any other buff/debuff/heal and at least two Brutes (one of which was preferrably, but not required to be, a Granite). That left one or two spots for a Dom and/or Stalker. Often one spot for the teams that wanted an extra brute or corr just to be safe.

Eight level 54 AVs pre-IOs and pre-PermaDom did not require any over-estimation whatsoever.

People collected Shivans and Nukes as an alternative to the preferred team, as I recall. Or just as insurance against a less-than-stellar PuG. Even used the stacked vengeance exploit if they could. And yeah, they brought a pile of purples and oranges in order not to die immediately.

I don't think any of that was over-reaction. Not after having failed it enough times myself to see what can happen on less optimal teams. I think a lot of people who couldn't hack it just gave up on it entirely until the nerf in I8.

To be entirely fair, I think his point was that you can't really make the game truly challenging while retaining that "anything works" gameplay. Makes sense. The harder something gets, the more power it requires to beat, hence the more "optimal" your team would need to be.

On a lighter note, the idea that you wouldn't be allowed to bring 6 stalkers is just plain hilarious.

I don't think they ever said it couldn't work. If I recall right they only denied it on the basis of "concept", which would be fine if they were at all consistent in applying that restriction. They initially denied villains access to Empathy, saying it did not fit the villain concept. Then later they made it so anyone can switch sides and now we can have Empathy villains anyway. Go figure.

People also make jokes about Shield Stalkers hiding behind their shields while not bothering to ask just HOW a regeneration Stalker hides. The answer of course is that though Hide was placed in the secondary, it really has little to DO with the secondary and should have been an inherent all along.

That's the danger in ANY kind of specialization. If being versatile is a requirement then you don't play MA. That said, I can't say I've ever been on a team that had too much single-target damage. I have most definitely been on plenty of teams that had way too much AoE. It's just that much more popular.

Solo this is true. The most efficient way to go through a spawn is to AoE until just the heavy targets are left and then scrap them with ST (assuming you don't need to kill them first for survival reasons). On a team you aren't the only one dealing damage so it's more efficient time-wise to split the task of taking out the larger number of lesser enemies with the task of taking out the bosses and do both at the same time. Inevitably, the person dealing with the bosses will do less total damage, however, so if you can't get past the idea that this person's contribution to the team is just as important as the ones AoEing all the trash and doing more total damage then.... well, you're not going to feel like you're contributing with a ST stalker.

I'm fine disagreeing but I hope this illustrates why the devs are so cagey about actually replacing powers. They don't do it very often and this is why. People disagree.

And it's for those fine people that I'm going to quibble over the use of the word "fail" here. In fact Stalkers ARE particularly good at being single target destroyers. Not the best. But quite good all the same. They should BE the best. Don't get me wrong. But they don't fail at it. Not by a long shot.

I never suggested anyone was taking the time to do anything of the sort. The mere fact though that everyone is focusing on one target means at the very least that you can count on melee teammates to be right there next to you if not absolutely 100% of the time then most of the time at least. The target may be moving, but if your melee allies are to do any damage then they HAVE to be there next to the target with you. That's not true in a typical spawn which can be spread out with teammates selecting different targets or chasing runners, etc.

Interesting you bring up Marauder though, considering at least one advantage that a Stalker has in that fight is the ability to re-enter Hide while chasing Maurauder after he leaps away and everyone is scrambling to catch up to him. I can very often get an Assassin Strike on him after each and every leap without breaking stride or waiting for Hide to re-enage. It has done so on the way to him (or close enough that the AS animation takes care of the rest).

Hit and scrap IS "playing like a Stalker". In my book, the way an AT is meant to be played is encoded in its design and the design of the Stalker does NOT reward hit-and-wait. So regardless of anyone's notions of what Stalkers should be... that is what they actually ARE.

This is one of the reasons Hide's endurance cost was removed. Though it provides some minor defense even when suppressed, you're right, it mainly does nothing while you're scrapping. Nevertheless, Hide still does exactly what it is supposed to do. It cloaks you so you can get the first strike on an unaware target and it makes that strike a critical. It's not that you lose the advantage of Hide after the fight starts. You USED the advantage of Hide to start the fight in your favor.

It's been suggested many times and is a good idea.

You do realize that I agree on that point, right? Nowhere in here am I saying Stalkers don't still need a buff. I am saying I don't think they need to be made more general. If they are intended to be specialists, then MAKE them special at that.

In ANY AV fight, iTrial or not, it's going to be more likely that you can find a position where you are getting more than the usual number of teammates in your happy 30ft radius of criticality. The main problem with staying huddled against a typical spawn (instead of an AV) is that your teammates aren't all focused on the same enemy. Even the melees can be at opposite ends of a spawn and be farther apart from you than 30ft. But against an AV there tends to be more of a huddle.

It really isn't. If you do this, you are doing less damage than if you had just gotten your Hide crit and followed it up with a normal attack chain instead of waiting for Hide. Nothing you have, not even Assassin Strike, makes that 8 seconds of ZERO damage while waiting for Hide to re-engage worth it. That's why the "hit and run nature" of stalkers has always only ever been a myth rather than something actually implied by the design. We're designed to hit from Hide and then scrap using Placate to gain another controlled crit where appropriate.

The problem with using a simple average here is that imagine what these spawns look like. For any group of 'n' enemies in an 8ft sphere they have to be spread out almost perfectly at maximum range for me NOT to easily hit more than half of them. e.g. For 5 enemies, you have to imagine they are standing at the points of an equilateral pentagon exactly 8 ft from you for me not to be able to sweep 3. How likely is that? And if I can get 3 while you get 5... you lose. It only gets easier for me to hit 3, 4, or 5 targets the more of them you pack into your 8ft sphere. 2.5 average? Hardly. Not in the SAME scenario where you are averaging 5.

The reality too is that you're not really going to be using Lotus every 10 seconds. There are going to be a lot more cases in a typical mission or task force where a loose couple or trio of enemies are standing together and I can sweep them with Flashing Steel. All I need is two. You can't use Lotus against two targets and keep up with me on damage. You NEED to always be hitting almost twice as many targets with Lotus as I can hit with Flashing Steel to stay ahead. Because Flashing Steel is more generally useful, it will get used a lot more often that two times per every use of Lotus. It will account for more total damage, so again no... don't want to trade.

Example? It's not that I disagree. I just can't think of anything they could do and that they would WANT to do which could leverage a Stalker's abilities to any significant extent without actually REQUIRING a stalker to be on the team.

I am not saying any other AT should NOT have the AoEs they have. I am saying there's no more reason to suggest that Stalkers should have to have more AoEs than they currently have than to suggest they should have AoE controls or debuffs. Generally speaking, it's not what they are designed to do. "Generally" being the operative word there. A few primaries give more AoE at the expense of ST if that's your thing. Why should every primary be the same?

That's rather the definition of a specialist. Why should every AT be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Note: I'm not suggesting Stalkers are the absolute masters of what they do. I WISH they were. I don't wish them all to be everything to everybody. That to me is boring and there are ample alternatives should I desire a melee AoE toon.

And you can do that with a few of the primaries already. If the devs would relent and proliferate Shield Defense to Stalkers, that would open up more possibilities. I just think that without doing something drastic like making AS or Placate inherent, it wouldn't be easy to add a PBAoE to those sets that are missing it. Nor would I want to give up powers I currently use to get that PBAoE.

How flexible are Blasters? In terms of the various kinds of damage they can do they are great, but survivability?

I wouldn't be so sure we fall behind on iTrials. If there is any situation where you might count on many teammates to be within close proximity it is in those fights.

P.S. None of our abilities are tied to hit and run.

Not that I care if they do or don't, but what exactly would be "flawed" about requiring a story arc to unlock epic pools?

Unfair was not being able to get the other side's epic pools at all. Sure, we could say it's technically still not quite 100% fair to require the arc for access to villain pools and not hero pools, but... meh. I tend not to care about pushing the devs to fix things I can easily enough fix myself. I've got bigger fish I'd rather have them frying.

Thank goodness.

Not sure I believe it rewards anyone for being particularly unique. That's kind of a feature. It allows just about any team to work where other games almost literally enforce the tired tank-heal-dps "holy trinity".

You said this:
And I gave you a situation where, in my opinion, it is. Everyone always goes on about AoE and I constantly remind them that in a spawn that has a variety of enemy ranks present, the ones with the most hit points are best attacked with single-target burst damage while someone else leads with AoE to take out the lesser enemies. That way the larger number of easier enemies falls at around the same time the few harder targets do instead of spending additional time to finish off the bosses that weren't killed by the AoEs.

Despite all their other problems, Stalkers are generally regarded, at the very least, as having the edge on ST burst damage and it is because of being able to start with Assassin Strike from Hide. It really doesn't matter that it takes 3 seconds to animate. You are not doing more damage to that boss with your Stalker in 3 seconds ANY other way.

Huh? If you choose to be a villain in the tutorial, does this not dump you in the Rogue Isles afterwards? No side switching needed for villain epics.

Poor choice of words. I was thinking of the alpha strike since I'm answering the question, "What can my stalker do with Hide, Assassin Strike, and Placate?". No, of course it's not the best general-use ST attack. But I'll argue it's the best opener against a typical spawn most of the time. Elec Stalkers are an exception due to how Lightning Rod works and solo or on a team without much other AoE damage, an AoE might be a better choice for those Stalkers than have a good one.

But nearly every team I join has "minion killing" taken care of and since I care about moving the team forward rather than just seeing the most orange numbers, attacking bosses is the best way to do that and Assassin Strike the best tool for doing THAT. At least for an opener.

You said Hide, Assassin Strike, and Placate. What is Assassin Strike but the best single-target attack in the game? If Stalkers were designed for anything it is getting right up next to a big important target (Hide) and then hitting it with the hardest ST attack possible (AS). At the same time you're debuffing everyone else around them. That's unique enough for me. It beats just stomping around smashing things. If I wanted that play-style, I'd play a Brute.

It's going to help you somewhere, Ryu. The entire game is not composed of enemies that only either do minor damage or else hit for 2500+ a pop. When you're killed, it's not always by 1000 hit points. Any time you receive just enough damage to be killed, a scrapper in your boots would not have died. And that's just a statistical certainty. More hit points is more survival. I really can't believe you're arguing against something that obvious.

And you don't need to argue against it. Stalkers should be less survivable, provided of course they have the damage to compensate for that.

It's hardly "almost double". Lotus does 36% more damage than Flashing Steel per target and that 36% more is from a delayed DoT. The initial burst from Lotus is the same damage as Flashing Steel. The critical hit portion from Lotus is the same damage as Flashing Steel. Endurance and recharge time are more than twice that of Flashing Steel. The ten target limit is great when you have ten targets to hit, but you far more often have fewer targets than that so clustered together. Flashing Steel is efficient on damage and endurance with just TWO targets and with a six second base recharge time it's something you can use VERY often. Put some procs in it.

No, I would not want Lotus at the expense of Flashing Steel. It would reduce damage output.