Dispari
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Posts
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Quote:Widows are a fabulous choice as well. They get great damage in addition to the DoT that adds more. They come equipped with great team buffs (Venge is always useful), ranged attacks, and even good utility and debuffs. With Smoke Grenade you can stealth and sneak around better than even a Stalker can.Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
If you want Stalker-like play without the stigma of actually being a Stalker, go with a Bane Spider.
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Quote:It's actually much more than that in the self-defense department. It's not just the base HP (but base HP does matter fairly significantly, especially among melee ATs due to the way it affects heals and regen).Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
Well, I agree, but I'm pointing out the way I think the devs are thinking. First of all, Stalkers are NOT that much easier to kill. They have 10% fewer hit points. That's it. They can't get buffed to higher protection like a Brute can, and they can't buff their hit points very far, but otherwise they can be defensively buffed as well as a Scrapper can. Yes, they're fragile, as fragile as a Scrapper is compared to a Brute, but that doesn't make a Scrapper fragile.
It's also the max HP. Stalkers have an abysmally low max HP cap. It's only 33.5% higher than their base. That means they can hit their HP cap with unslotted powers like HPT and Dull Pain, and miss out on a significant portion of mitigation through higher HP. Brutes can more than double their base HP. Mine runs around with over 3000 HP. A Stalker can't do that. Not even close.
Plus, each secondary set loses a power for Hide. In some cases this doesn't really impact survival such as Regen losing an endurance power (then again Regen loses regen, heal, and +HP). But in other cases this means things like less resistance or less defense.
Anyway, I'm just ranting semantics. In my head a Stalker is between a Scrapper and a Blaster. They're not as durable as a Scrapper, so logically they should just flat out do more damage. Or in the very least, if they're forced into the specialty of doing ST DPS, they should be really good at it. Right now, they're fairly underwhelming and not a popular teaming AT. I suppose though the devs are okay with that as long as they're a popular soloing AT (which could be the case). -
FTR fury doesn't "max at 75%," I've gotten it quite a bit higher than that on my Brute even recently. True it's harder to keep at high levels like 90-95%, but it's not impossible to go past 75%.
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Quote:It's actually kind of a curve IIRC. Outside of some fringe cases (sets that have significant self-contained +DMG buffs), a Brute vs Scrapper always has the Brute leading. Add some moderate damage buffs and the Scrapper pulls ahead. Then somewhere near the end with high damage buffs, Brute leads and eventually as both are capped, wins again.Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
Now, on a team the Scrapper pulls ahead because his damage buffs add to his 1.95 Damage slotting, and multiply by his 1.125 base and his Criticals, while the Brutes damage buffs are stacked with his Fury and only multiply by a 0.75 base. So once the Brute starts getting damage buffs from his team he quickly falls behind. But with no buffs from the team and only minor self buffs (not scaled to the number of opponents) a Brute with 75% Fury will very likely be doing more damage than the Scrapper.
Then again, Brute damage cap changed recently so that may no longer be true. Oh well. Your basic point remains true. -
Quote:Which to me is totally fine, because the Stalker has less AoE potential and is easier to kill. He's not going to be killing minions and lieutenants faster. It's going to give him an edge on bosses, EBs, and AVs. Where his current performance is only a tiny bit better than a Scrapper. Giving them a big perk here like allowing them to do a huge spike of damage before they resort to standard DPS (in which they'd have a minor edge still), would make them more useful to a team.Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
Again, it's not the Crit rate that is the issue. It's that a Stalker can, at will, follow a Build Up with a Critical on demand. A Scrapper cannot do that. Ever.
And before you say, "Using Placate will add even more to your animation time, reducing your DPS" remember that you are getting a 160% bonus to damage on top of double the base damage. Three slotted, with no other damage bonuses on you that's 275% damage (almost three times) for an additional 2.67 seconds animation time. Unless your attack is less than 1.5 s cast time you're coming out ahead.
With a 100% damage bonus, that would be 300%. Not that much more, sure, but you're already getting 127.5% more than the Scrapper with the same Build Up.
BU -> AS -> Placate -> t9 with the numbers I mentioned would be pretty great burst damage. And, shockingly, would actually allow Stalkers to do what they're sort of supposed to be doing, in a way that would actually be noticeable and desired by a team. Let them be the kings of ST. They suck at everything else. -
Quote:0.75 with +150% is not 1.125. You multiplied by 1.5 didn't you? That means you're multiplying by 150%, not +150% (the difference is the plus). IE, you're only adding 50%. You have to consider base damage too. So you do 0.75 * 2.5 = 1.875Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Brutes with 75% fury get 150% bonus damage, bringing their modifier up to 1.125, which is only equal to scrappers.
Or if it's easier for you:
0.75 (base) + 0.75 ( 100% extra) + 0.375 (50% extra) = 1.875
You have to add in the damage from enhancements before directly comparing those numbers, though, since that sways it some toward Scrappers. But Brutes still pull ahead around 60% fury. -
Quote:I'd rather devs take the path of least resistance. Balance one class instead of two (or even more than two if there starts to become a problem between them and Tankers, or them and Blasters). In some cases the path of least resistance means nerfing. In this one it would mean buffing.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
TBH, they should probably lower Brute and Scrapper damage, rather than raise Stalker damage. But that is not likely to happen either.
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Quote:Scrappers already get 100% with 1.125 and 5-15% crit rate (10-15% on targets that actually matter) and it's not a problem. This would be Stalkers getting 100% with 1.125% and 10-31% crit rate. It wouldn't be massive insanity or anything.Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
The thing to remember about the self buff is that with a Critical, a self buff of 80% becomes a self buff of 160%. Criticals multiply damage buffs, instead of just stacking with them as other damage buffs would. A Scrapper can Crit on a Build Up, but only has a 5% chance of it happening, while a Stalker is in complete control of that. (And I would guess that the average Stalker uses BU+Critical at least 90% of the time)
Raising damage to 1.125 I wouldn't have a problem with, but I consider it less likely than the devs increasing the frequency of non-controlled Criticals.
As far as them using BU before controlled criticals like AS or their t9 -- good for them. That's what they should be doing. Stalkers suck at AoE and they die easier. Why shouldn't they be able to hit stupidly hard once in a while? Doing a one-shot for far more damage isn't going to improve their performance on minions and lieutenants who already die in one hit right now. It's going to improve their performance against significant targets, where it's actually wanted, and will actually make people interested in bringing them. -
Quote:I tend to agree. As I said above, I have a Stalker. She's 32. I fiddle with her sometimes, but I won't pretend she's a great character. Every time I look at her I think about how she's inferior to my Brutes, Scrappers, and Widow in every way. I could build her up and IO her out, but that investment would be better placed into a better melee AT.Originally Posted by Test_Rat
It's a pipe dream.
I am currently in the process of dismantling my spines/nin stalker in exchange for a fire/EA brute. Just so I can still enjoy (in many ways superior) stalker like play style yet get s/tf and raid invites. Castle's stalkers are where we want them post was the final straw. The AT is dead to me.
I can't pretend to assume I know exactly what's right for the class or could balance them immediately. But if I was in charge the first thing I'd do would be to make Stalker base damage 1.125 and their self-buffs enough that Build Up does +100% instead of +80%. And then see where that puts them.
Unfortunately, as you say, it seems the devs are happy with how unpopular Stalkers are. -
Quote:Happened to someone I know, they did a Cuda and got one, then did a Khan and got one.Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
Possibly. I don't know anything about it, outside the mysterious rumblings of, "...and if you do it a certain way, you get more than one."
It didn't work for me though. You know... when I was "testing" it. To make sure it wasn't bugged. That's it.
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Quote:Make the damage they contribute to a team be worthwhile enough for people to care about it. Right now almost all Stalkers (except for outliers) do less AoE damage than any other melee -- in fact, some do no AoE damage whatsoever. They're supposed to excel in ST, but they don't do more damage than Scrappers until they're surrounded by teammates on all sides, and even then, the damage difference isn't enough to offset the fact that they have weak AoE and die easily.Originally Posted by EvilRyu
So what do you think its going to take to finally get the devs attention to bring stalkers up to par? Sometimes I wish I could go to those dev meet and greets or those comic con things so I could talk so sense into them so they can finally address many of the long standing issues we have had in this game since day 1.
If they're supposed to be ST specialists they should be really, really good at it. Right now they're only a tiny bit better than anyone else you could take, with tons of drawbacks. -
I think I'll be there with my monkeygirl in her best zebra pants. I don't expect to win a pack, but I fully intend to buy one anyway.
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Haha, nice. Was starting to wonder if this was something new we'd all have to live with.
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Scrapper, without going into details what makes me not seek Stalkers. I'll take one if a friend has one or they ask, but I don't search for them. Khelds and Stalkers are the only AT I don't search for when I build a team. Again, I'll take them, but I don't search for them.
I have a Stalker, and she's okay and kind of fun to play, but I won't pretend she's anything special. It's my opinion that Stalkers should flat-out do more damage than Scrappers, unconditionally, all the time, because they're easier to kill. As long as that's not the case, I'll continue not looking for them. -
Quote:No, but we had a really powerful team besides. I always build with a lot of Corrs and VEATs. But all they did is stand around providing toggles. My widow does that, but she actually kills things too.Originally Posted by Landeyda
Out of curiosity, what was the outcome of that? I mean, did anyone call them out?
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The other day I was doing an STF and we had a widow on the team who only had one attack.
Oh sure, they were level 50. And had other powers. But only one of them was an attack. They had the entire leadership pool, and all the powers you could think of, but not attacks. In combat, they just stood there. Looking pretty. -
Quote:Everyone gets some autos. Small buffs like +6% damage and whatnot. Most people get a click power. But some like Scrappers/Stalkers just get pure autos (they get an extra auto that does other stuff though).Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
Does everybody get 4 powers after defeating Ghost Widow? I'm playing as a corruptor and I get four powers but the only Power I can use "sometimes" is the Sicrooco power. After beating Ghost Widow I always tell the team see if there is a new power you can drag to your toolbar and use it.
I always get a bunch of people saying they only got a passive power. I'm now wondering if they have 4 powers but are just seeing the top most power in the list and thinking it's the only power they got. -
Quote:No, the Khan version seriously isn't that hard. It's about like fighting 8 AVs, 1-2 at a time. Almost any team can do that. Especially since they aren't even +1. There's nothing challenging or spectacular about the final Khan fight. If a regular team can't kill an AV, then that team is just horrible.Originally Posted by Toony
AKA an exceptional team.
Saying any or most teams can do it is a lie.
Now the Barracuda fight is different, because it has constant ambushes that can get incredibly numerous. And on top of that, Reich actually does crazy things that require special abilities and ATs to cope with (like someone to unphase him). That one is a lot more challenging and requires a more well-built team. -
Eh, just finished a Cuda that took us a long time. We had to wait out the ambushes until they were totally gone, then focus on Reich. Our support consisted of a Pain Corr, FF MM, Widow, and a Dark MM. But the dark MM dropped so we only had minimal -RES sources. We finally started to get tired of it so we whipped out shivans to finish.
I still think Cuda is more annoying than the Khan. But still haven't failed one. Being down a person with basically no debuffs left on the team was pretty lame though. -
Just a sort of /e crouch for the idle for beast run would be better in my opinion.
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Quote:They already announced there are solo options available coming with i20. It was in one of the public address thingies (there are like 10 now so it's easy to miss one).Originally Posted by Heroid
I was talking to a friend who is big into Mr. T's favorite MMO and this sounds a LOT like what he was describing to me. So far, all of the "end-game" content has been team/raid oriented. So if you take a character through the levels doing mostly solo stuff you suddenly have to change the way you play to enjoy the high-level content? Is CoH gravitating toward the same mentality as that other game? If it is, wow, that sucks.
Is there anything coming down the pike that is solo-friendly? Or are solo players persona non grata now? -
I see the point behind making the resistance guys uncontrollable, but I disagree with it. I have a few questions concerning that that may make it more okay.
1) There are other enemies in this who CAN be controlled right? You aren't making this a task where Trollers/Doms will be totally undesirable?
2) Are there guys in that specific mob that can be controlled, or is that entire wave/step uncontrollable?
3) Can they still be slowed and taunted? -
Quote:Your attack chain can't recharge faster than "no gaps in the first place."Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Please clarify.
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When doing /e crouch with the new feline feet, they clip horribly through the tops of the legs. This seems like a big oversight since this is a natural combination of costume and emote to go together.
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Four things that stood out to me:
1) The jump with beast run seems a little odd. It doesn't really seem like the character touches down and jumps again. More just they're somehow doing a pogo with one leg. A more fluid animation here would be better, for when the character jumps.
2) Having a new pack with bird parts without any new wings is questionable to me. Granted the wings we have are fine for this, but not everyone has those costume parts unlocked/purchased. In the same way you included a new wolf tail with this pack so people didn't have to buy the mutant pack too, this really should include at least one stock set of wings.
3) One costume part I think you guys should've done and really didn't think of is a collar and leash. We've been using the same spiked collar forever, and haven't gotten any new thing to put around our necks. Although not strictly animal themed, I think you can see where the connection is. A new collar, maybe with a dogtag, or with a hanging leash/chain, would fit great in this pack. It probably wouldn't be visible with some of the large heads, but lots of people would get use out of it.
4) The animal heads, in general, especially on female models, just seem small. I made a werewolf girl using the wolf head, and her head just seemed tiny compared to what it's supposed to be. I think they could stand to be scaled up a little.