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Hopefully next time around we won't get dog-piled by quite so many Magi... That was just terrifying. XD
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I suspect the old fellow is having some supply issues... How many of those things do we smash on a daily basis? It can't be easy keeping the quality standards high when you have to rush production to keep up.
Besides, who puts their best models on a project tha's just going to be discovered by some meddling hero in a week or two anyway? -
Add me as another +1 for getting the wings/bolero coat combination back. If I can have wings with the wedding tux's tails, why the devil can't I have them with that bolero? One would seem to be just as much of a strain on the system as the other.
I'd also like to have the older, not-so-grim faces back. Re-using the same handful of more benign faces over and over again bothers me, but currently it's the only way around having a toon that perpetually looks like someone dropped a rikti monkey in his wheaties. -
Quote:This.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
1. Shadow Shard revamp and co-op
Revamps; making old stuff new for everyone.
I wouldn't make a new zone. I'd make the Shard a more interesting place to play around in. It's a beautiful zone... but there's just not much out there. -
I really, really want to be able to do this... as well as minor color-changes like we can do with standard models in AE. That would make life so much easier for Patron pet owners and the people who run with them.
My favorite Stalker, Grey Kestrel, has an Adept companion that's been mistaken for an enemy more times than I care to count. It happens just about every time we go after Arachnos. Team-mates see him drift by out of the corner of their eye, don't notice the green name and try to target him because, hey, he looks exactly like those Mu who are trying so hard to zark the crap out of us... usually resulting in a "Dammit, Cardinal! Stop DOING that!" over team-chat.
If I could just alter the shade of poor Cardinal's outfit a little... add a contrasting color that standard Adepts don't have... SOMETHING to make him more distinct... But, alas.
Being able to use Edison and Oppenheimer's names (My gadgeteer trick arrow defender's clockwork pets-) would be fun, too. Likewise, Bloo (Khalanis' dark servant-). -
I haven't tried the Brute version of KM (I just don't like the AT's play-style), but I do have a Stalker, a Tank and a Scrapper. All three are WP secondary... Of them, I think the Stalker has it best.
Siphon is interesting from a mechanical standpoint, but I really prefer the plain old BU Stalkers get, and the attack they lose to shoe-horn Placate into the set isn't much of a loss. -
Quote:You've never teamed with me. I play fliers almost exclusively.Originally Posted by TameDragon
I know super speed is usually taken for for hasten, leaping for CJ/Acro but WHY do i never seen builds with fly in?
That said, as others have mentioned upthread, flying just isn't the most build-efficient travel set. It's also slower than most of the others, even after slotting. -
I ran into a little stuttering and command lag last night, but it seemed okay this morning...
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Quote:Sure... *IF* you put off taking other things. Which you may or may not really want to do, depending on how you play and exactly what you're going for.Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
Yes you can obtain those two combos fairly early and attack vitals isn't obtained till level 18 (Vengeful Strike). Basically if you avoid picking up a travel power you can have access to three of the dual blades combos before level 20!
Empower is good when the mobs are spread out, and you need to scrap it out.
Sweep excels when minions clump around a Lt or Boss on teams or solo.
Attack Vitals is a combo geared for single target damage, which works surprisingly well.
It'll definitely be easier once the "Fitness track" is out of the picture. -
As you can probably tell from my sig text, I'm fond of the set... Three of the six Stalker toons I have at the moment are DBs. (For comparison purposes, the other half of my sneaky folk are Claws, KinMelee and Elec-)
I've done pretty well with them, over-all. While I always find myself missing Typhoon, between Thousand Cuts and Sweeping they still have a decent balance of AoE and single target damage. Their knock-downs are useful, and I've found the Sweep combo in particular good for mitigation purposes. In spite of it being dependant on using the build-up and AS, it does have its uses.
On a less technical note, the animations are nice and flow together pretty well. That's one of its big appeals for me, since I tend to prefer smooth, "perpetual motion" attack chains when I'm scrapping with mobs... My biggest complaint with my Katana scrap (and with the Ninja Blade stalker set, honestly-) is that they have such stilted pauses and breaks between attacks... But that's very much a subjective, personal-opinion kind of thing and in no way affects the "numbers" side of the game. Ninja Blade, after all, is popular for a reason. XD
Down sides? That "perpetual motion"-business eats blue like there's no tomorrow if you don't take Stamina or slot some end reduction. The set doesn't have any sort of ranged attack like KinMelee's, and while I haven't looked at the stats, it *feels* like they take a bit longer to chew through groups in general than my Claws stalker does at the same level. Also, as was already mentioned up-thread, it takes awhile to get your first combo... and their damage is mostly Lethal, with all the good and bad that comes with that. -
I'm pretty fond of all of my crew's pets... My Dark/Archery Defeneder's Dark Servant, Bloo (Yes, named after the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends character- XD), is a particular favorite. Adding his powers to Lan's own makes for a great dark-all-over-everything-in-sight good time.
My second DB Stalker's Mu is another favorite. Kestrel is my only dedicated role-playing character, and having her Adept partner around has turned out to be an important part of her concept. Given that, I ended up investing a lot in Kes' enhancements to get as close to wrapping Cardinal's Summon as I could (Their current "down time" is right around 2 minutes. It'll be just under that once her Hecatomb set is finished-), and specificly adjusting a few things in her build with an eye towards helping his survivability. Beyond any RP considerations, the guy's control-type powers have proven to be very useful, and aside from a few AI weirdnesses, Kes is definitely a much stronger character for having him around. -
I don't think lack of Brawl will stop the weirdness. Just like the Phantasm mentioned upthread, my favorite Stalker's Mu companion also has a bad habit of closing to melee distance with his targets...
'Boy doesn't have a Brawl attack to his name, but absolutely still acts as if he does. I can't count the number of times that's gotten him into trouble. (War Hulks are a particular bane. It's like watching a moth drift up to an explosive candle flame.
)
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+1
FlyingCodeMonkey and I have had this problem recently, as well.
For some reason it seems to hit me a little more often than it hits him, but either way it's an annoying bug... And I can only use the "back-up" of telling where he is by watching which part of the mini-map is revealing itself when he *hasn't* already used his vet power to unmask the entire thing before we start. Which is rare. o_0 -
Quote:I've run into the "multiple sapper" fast-spawning ambushes a few times, too. They're not what I would call a fun time with my Willpower types. In fact, they're a royal pain in the rump.Originally Posted by Ironblade
Yeah, I think the spawning is borked. It's not consistently bad but, when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. I was doing that mission (solo) and the first ambush had a Sapper. Okay, that's reasonable. The second ambush had a Sapper. That's a little annoying. The third ambush was TWO SAPPERS. All we need next is a mission where every spawn is all Sappers.
NPCs ambushes that are character rather than location targeted also seem to be holding aggro in odd ways. Typically when you exit the map (Either via the door or a trip to the hospital-) they'll have lost interest in you when you re-enter. Not all of the ambushes in the tip missions are doing that.
So far, Shock Treatment in the "Really Bizarre Rumors" mission has been the most consistantly bad about it. I've been testing it with my KinMelee Stalker every time the mission comes up and so far, Shocky has never failed to maintain aggro on her. As soon as I re-enter the map after leaving, she'll come right back at me, even if I've given her enough time to reset to her ambush starting point. Other ambush groups and individual NPCs have behaved similarly, though not as consistantly.
At this point, I'm wondering if that's actually a bug in Shock Treatment's case, or if for that particular NPC it's working exactly as intended. She's a bit of a monster for those of us who live and die by our toggles, and that just makes her even worse. 0_o -
My Widow is Cholula... Yes, named after the hot sauce ... She's supposed to be the "player character" version of the Night Widow NPC pet/companion who works with Mei'jin (my older Stalker-). That pet version's name was originally a nod towards the theme that Mei's Mastermind partner picked for his thugs. They're all named after chili peppers. (Chipotle, Anaheim, Serrano, and so on-) The mastermind himself is Cayenne.
My Bane is Mameshiba. He's named after a Japanese brand of snack food... Their mascot is this weird, adorable little animated soy-bean puppy thing. I have a talking keychain version of the creature, and one of the things it says is simply "Bean"... Which, with tiny speaker distortion and its accent, comes out "Baaaaeeeennn!"
Thus was born one small, green, ridiculously cute and utterly silly "chibi" Bane spider. XD -
My Widow, Cholula, is staying firmly on the wicked side of the world with her Crab Spider pal Rules (FCM and I always run them as a duo-), but my silly little "chibi" Bane, Mameshiba? He's likely to end up a Rogue at the very least.
I just can't look at him and see "seriously evil dude". He's just too cute to be bad.
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FlyingCodeMonkey and I run a couple of different Tank+Something pairs and have had pretty good sucess with them... My all-arounder Willpower/Dual Blade main and his Fire/Energy blapper-style blaster are a very solid duo, as are my built-for-melee-defense WP/DB and his Spines/Fire scrap.
Pixel for pixel, though, the most effective pair we've put together has to be his Shield tank and my built-to-never-miss DB/WP scrapper. Median and Ash can tear a hole through mobs like nobody's business. They're a great combination for stabby stomp-fest fun. -
There actually *are* a few things your team-mates can do that may interrupt an Assassin's Strike. They're all based on your toon being bumped out of position, as far as I can tell... My MM partner's bruiser thug has a foot-stomp that can do it, for example. I've also been interrupted by his arsonist's firebomb and paton Chum Spray a few times.
It doesn't happen every time... But it absolutley does happen occasionally. -
Quote:I think most of the players who run into those two either have the PPD back-up with them to take some of the heat, or they figure out pretty quickly that you can (and should-) seperate them... They're still not exactly push-overs, being EBs with the PToD-thing going for them, but they're definitely much easier to handle one-on-one than they are together.Originally Posted by Armath
I'm surprised you guys aren't mentioning the fight with Master Yin and his bodyguard which in my opinion was even harder to fight them 2 EB's at the same time while not using the "call for back up" option.
The only two EBs who gave my KM/WP soloist any real trouble were Vanessa DeVore (Which was completely my own fault. I hadn't run the mission in beta, had no clue what to expect and so didn't go in with much of a Breakfree supply... Something that a quick run to the door and visit to my nearest contact corrected-) and Noble Savage, who just flat-out had the blessing of the random number generator when Shade met him.
My little Stalker still won both of those fights without face-planting, so even when things don't go exactly by the numbers, it's far from a lost cause, but they do take more thought than the usual "sneak in, line up, get stabby" routine. -
Just adding a +1 to the file, here...
I ran into exactly the same problem with this mission last night, while running it with my own blue-side Stalker. Shade one-shotted poor Blasty and he vanished rather than sticking around to talk to her, preventing the ambushes from spawning.
I suspected killing him out-right must have been the problem, so I just /bugged it, then reset the mission and ran it again. Being careful *not* to AS Blast Furnace into oblivion on the second run-through made everything work as expected.
So... yeah. This mission presents a bit of a problem for Stalker players who aren't aware of the problem. It's a pretty good bet that most of us will go for the one-shot kill, and then be unable to complete the thing. -
Quote:Soloing, it's nice from a "get on with it already"-perspective, and it's good for getting the first shot in before a pet catches up... but I haven't had the chance to try it out teamed yet. I can't see anything that shortens our set-up time as a bad thing, but no clue how much or little this particular difference will make.Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
It's been pointed out in another thread that the animation for AS is shorter by roughly the same amount that Build Up has been extended.
Now that I know to expect Build Up to be longer, I can work around it. Has anyone noticed any difference in practice on the AS? Jury's still out for me on whether the 2.65 second AS makes any significant difference.
As for the BU timing, if the longer activation is intentional I guess we can just hit it en route if we need to. That'll shave a second or two of set-up time. I already have to do that with one of my DB/WPs (She runs with a fragile ag-magnet of an Adept pet, and has to kill things before they see him-) and it works reasonably well once you get the timing down. I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well with a team if it comes to that.
Honestly, if I'd been thinking about the KinMelee BU's longer activation at the time, I'd probably have tried the same thing with Kang... but I was too intent on getting to smack Aeon around.
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I'll add my /bug to the collective when I sign on to Shade this afternoon.
That extra bit of a delay nearly got a favorite NPC pet flattened yesterday in the last Anti-Matter mission. ('Gave him too much time to close on the goons... Dude got to Aeon before I could AS the second drone into oblivion.
) That moves it into "annoying even when solo"-territory.
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Quote:+1Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
It doesn't seem like much on paper, but on teams it's very annoying when you realize that the difference is just long enough for you to hit build up and have your target move out of AS range before the attack cues up.
Soloing, it's no big deal but on a team even that small of an extra delay is apt to bite us. -
Ah, so more people did show up? Code Monkey and I were there briefly with our VEAT pair (Cholula and Rules-) but there were barely enough folks in-zone at the time to make a complete team. I didn't think enough would show to run one.
'Glad to hear I was wrong, even if we missed it.
We'll probably bring the same toons along again next time, though... I really want to see how the two spidery-things handle on a raid. -
Will do.
Thanks for the reply. ^_^