Dispari

Adamastor. His ability to stand still and stare into space blankly is a superior combat tactic to walking into drones.

At one point they experimented with letting AS do damage that scales with the rank of the target, so it would do more damage on bosses and up. It would do a lot on AVs. They realized though that it was hard to balance and a little out of control so they scrapped the idea.

I don't disagree with that. I thought of adding Blasters to the #1 spot of my damage list and #5 for my defense list above, but it was too much of a side-comment. Also, the last time I made that discussion it got derailed a lot with people trying to ascertain the "value" of ranged powers and tanking and saying the ATs aren't that black and white. Which I also acknowledge, but still believe as far as their roles and abilities, it should be something close to that.

I'm not sure what I'd do to Blasters. I have a lot more ideas for messing with Stalkers first. I think it would be important to get Stalkers to the place where they should be before deciding where Blasters need to end up. Especially if we're viewing Stalkers as the missing link between Scrappers and Blasters.

At the same time I also know it's possible the devs don't want to put Stalkers there. It's possible they don't want to open a can of worms by making it so technically, Stalkers outscrap Scrappers (even if some people will already argue that they do on large teams). Then some Scrapper players might complain as they thought they were supposed to be the best damage dealers and now they have to reroll as Stalker or whatever people are going to come up with. I think the devs may still have some ideas for making it so Stalkers have a point before just making them do more damage than Scrappers.

I think there's something to be said about there being 5 ATs that exist just to do damage and having to balance them together. Probably 5 was too many, but too late to fix that now. The trick will be making it so each rung of the ladder is a desirable option.

Depends; Scrappers still get a lot of advantages. More AoE attacks (even if this has been lessened with some of the recent sets), more availability of damage buffs (AAO, Fiery Embrace), and in some cases just better damage buffs (Follow Up, Soul Drain). Some Scrappers can also serve as pseudo tanks if you like that particular role.

Their health/defense advantage is still important. The HP difference between Scrappers and Stalkers is about 11.5%. The HP difference for Scrappers and Brutes is about 12%. Stalkers regen and heal for less. And with some sets that's a big part of their durability. Stalkers also drop a couple defensive powers here and there. Although it's hard to quantify the contributions of Hide and Placate.

Also I suggested raising Scrapper RES to cap to 80% which would help a little.

If the health/defense difference "isn't that much" then neither would be the damage increase. They'd do the same base damage but with Stalkers critting at 10% base while Scrappers do 5% on minions and 10% on everything else (and then your guaranteed crit from Hide). Stalkers would go up a little in teams assuming people are standing near them, but that difference would still be pretty small overall. Throw in the variables of number of AoE powers available and they'd be pretty comparable.

It isn't something I'd do lightly, it would need to be checked out and tested first. I still think it would work out though.

Speaking as a Brute player whose main character for farming is a Brute, I'm still in favor of it. It depends on when players and devs are willing to admit that Brutes can do too many things at once, or are too good at too many things at once.

Also, in beta I think the real problem was that for some reason Castle felt he had to increase Brute base RES in order to decrease their RES cap. For one, that led to an overall buff to the Brute AT which was a bad idea, and two, it unfairly targeted some Brute sets and not others. Though there are still people who will not accept a nerf of any kind no matter what, and I know some of those people spoke up.

I still agree with this. So as I said it depends on what the devs' eventual goal for Stalkers is. Personally I feel they'd be better suited to a Blapper AT. Just do lots of damage overall (more than the other melee ATs) but be easier to kill. They can keep their stealth and AS and placate. They'll just be "high damage contributors who are also good at ST." Which is okay by me since Blasters tend to be "high damage contributors who are also good at AoE."

Really there are two ways to buff an AT, and the devs use both methods depending on their goals. Either one is acceptable, it just depends on what exactly they're trying to accomplish.

The first is just to increase their numbers. For instance, raise their damage scale by 12.5%. They've done this with Blasters in the past. And they did it with Doms when they rebalanced Domination. Speaking personally, I prefer this method because it's a lot more predictable and straightforward. It's easier to predict the outcome and leaves less room for wildcards. It's also easier to implement as there's no brainstorming process. From a dev standpoint though, it's very unimaginative and can bore players into not really checking out the changes, or just overlooking them entirely.

The second is to add special effects and gimmicks. They do this more often as of late. Instead of buffing Tanker damage they gave them a -RES power. And they're buffing Assassin Strike to be useable outside of Hide. The devs seem to prefer this method because it expands on the possibilities of an AT and can make them more engaging and unique. The downside is this introduces tons more wildcards and can produce unexpected results. It can also be difficult to balance, and can even be difficult to prove and compare balance, when there are extra variables that you can't even assign a value to (what exactly is the value of Hide in a spreadsheet?).

Either one is good. But we'll have to see if it eventually makes Stalkers a desirable AT. Personally I'd love to have a reason to make one.

Maybe my wording wasn't that good. I'm not talking about people being overjoyed that there's a Stalker on the team. What I'm saying is that right now your team might need one of a few roles: damage, support, tanking. You can toss whatever AT vaguely fits those criteria and succeed in most cases.

If I add a Corruptor to the team, I know what roles they're filling and how they help the team. If I add a Stalker to the team I get more of a sensation that they aren't that useful. I'd be much happier with the game if I felt more confident that adding a Stalker to the team would contribute the damage I was hoping to fill with that particular slot.

Or for people who just roll dice and get 8 random ATs, I'd feel more comfortable if I felt like that Stalker was as useful to the team as any other random AT. Right now I feel that Tankers, Defenders, Stalkers, and a few other miscellaneous things offer a sub-par contribution. And even if we can all get by on that, it'd be better if AT appreciation was more even.

I don't think the goal is to make you invite Stalkers more, but to make people more inclined to play Stalkers and have an increased ability to enjoy them. You may end up inviting more as a side-effect of them becoming a more popular AT.

That's an issue I've raised countless times. In theory it should work like this:

Best to worst Defense:
1) Tanker
2) Brute
3) Scrapper
4) Stalker

Best to worst Damage:
1) Stalker
2) Scrapper
3) Brute
4) Tanker

Unfortunately, it actually works like this:

Best to worst Defense:
1) Tanker
2) Brute
3) Scrapper
4) Stalker

Best to worst Damage:
1) Scrapper/Brute
2) Stalker
3) Tanker

Brutes do a ton of stuff for their role. Not only do they get more HP (which means more health per regen and more health from heals), but a higher RES cap, and still pretty much do comparable damage to Scrappers.

Stalkers, despite being the easiest to kill, are largely considered to do less damage than the leading two ATs. And Tankers, while technically existing in the correct order, are essentially made unnecessary simply because Brutes exist.

There are tons of ways to approach the situation and plenty of room for error. Personally if it was my job to balance the ATs I'd start by making Stalkers have 1.125 damage scale and their BU doing 100%. Yes, they'd do more damage than Scrappers at all times. Which in my opinion they should, considering they're easier to kill. Some other options I've thought of would include nerfing Brute RES caps (personally I feel the RES caps should be 90%, 85%, 80%, 75% for the ATs respectively, following the defensive list), buffing other AT HP caps (and probably nerfing Brutes' HP cap since they're the only non-epic AT with a cap more than twice their starting HP). Other people have tossed around other ideas like making Hide and/or AS inherent and restoring some lost Stalker powers.

So there are a lot of ways to approach it. It just depends on what the devs' eventual goal for Stalkers even is. And it's also best to take it one small change at a time, since overcompensating and later nerfing usually makes for unhappy players.

I still wouldn't need those things even if they were really good at their roles. I could still beat anything just by throwing random melees and support ATs at it. Just because Tankers get a buff doesn't mean I'd start needing them.

The ATs already have roles, and people already mostly ignore them. What I'm saying is some of the ATs are so closely defined by their role that they lose in other areas. And not with the tradeoff of being really good at that role.

Even if Stalkers suddenly became really good at killing AVs, I wouldn't need to go find one and people wouldn't start requiring them for TFs and trials. It'd just be nice if you did have one. Just like any other AT. Right now, is anyone really excited to have a Stalker on the team?

This is kind of my issue with a few ATs. Defenders, Tankers, Blasters*, and Stalkers. They're designed to be one-trick ponies. The problem is, the one trick they have can be done "good enough" by other ATs.

Most well-built Brutes can tank for a team. Especially if they have some support behind them (support, mind you, that is good enough on a Corruptor, Controller, or Mastermind in most cases). Adding even more HP, RES, and DEF isn't going to make you die less than "not at all." There's a cap on survivability, where you aren't dying (which is the goal of survivability after all). Once you hit that point, adding more does nothing. Except maybe allow the support to slack off more. Although I have Brutes who can do x8 by themselves with no support (one of them +4/x8, even though I don't because it's slow).

Defenders are really good on buffs/debuffs. But really, once you get 2 or more of any support AT (including VEATs), that no longer matters. I suppose in theory you could get by on a single Defender in some situations where you might otherwise need 2 of any other support AT. But with the way buffs and debuffs stack, I don't see why you'd run an 8-man team with that ratio if you have the option not to. Personally, I like my teams to be about half support just for good measure.

Problem with Stalkers is they fill a role that nobody feels like needs to be filled. Which for the most part, with the way the game is currently designed, I agree. ST burst damage is very unnecessary. ST DPS would be useful but probably not enough that people seek it out unless it was really something special.

And problem with Blasters is they sacrifice everything to just do damage. Which really, every AT already does just fine. Some of them dangerously well (Shield Scrappers, SS Brutes, Fire/Kins, and so on). And all those ATs have secondary functions and much higher survivability. Blasters, like Stalkers, are supposed to excel at doing a certain type of damage. So they should be really good at it.

Personally speaking, I have nothing against any of these ATs and won't deny them from being on my team. But in a void, if I had the option, I'd never take a Defender over a Corruptor, a Tanker over a Brute (okay, maybe for STF, even though I've tanked Recluse on my Brute), or a Stalker over a Scrapper. And I'd usually rather a Dominator than a Blaster (I kind of feel like Doms are Blappers with mez anyhow; at least that's how I play mine).

* Blasters less than those others because I still enjoy playing them a lot.

Really I think high ST damage is something that groups don't realize they desire. It's just nobody's good enough at it for them to go looking for it.

Most teams can obliterate a bunch of minions and usually lieutenants. But that leaves the bosses. If there was someone who was really good at taking out bosses quickly, the team could roll along faster instead of everyone pausing to attack the boss afterward. But even though that's "a Stalker's job" they don't exactly take out bosses in the same time it takes a team to blow up all the minions. Especially if we're talking about high end teams where people are just tossing out Judgement powers.

In trials we have a bunch of EBs and AVs that have to be taken down. Most of my chars don't even get a chance to catch up to the team to wipe out spawns of baddies if we're talking about things like the opening of BAF, Lambda, Keyes. But once it gets down to "kill these EBs" or "kill these AVs" then single target damage becomes more necessary. Though you're right that DPS is better than burst damage in that scenario, so hopefully Stalkers get to be good at both.

Slightly off-topic, but I have long since wished that on large teams (6+) the ending bosses of any mission you do were upgraded to EB. It's pretty anti-climactic to do a mission to take down a named boss when you've already fought two bosses per spawn on your way there. And it would slightly increase the usefulness of ST damage.

Using all made up numbers:

If we assume the normal selling price is $5 and they sell 500 a month, they make $2500.

Say the item goes on sale and is going for $3. People like that so about 800 people buy it. That's a lot more than usual. Unfortunately that nets the company $2400. It does not benefit them to keep selling it at that price and they may as well just go back to the old price.

If however it goes on sale for $3 and more like 1000 people buy it, they're making $3000 a month. Now maybe it'd be a good idea to just keep selling it at $3.

I believe AS will still do way more damage from Hide. I also believe there's no AoE fear outside of Hide. What the change means is:

1) Ideally, leading off with AS is still the best option. It will do the most damage of all your attacks.

2) If leading off with AS is impractical, you can still use it in the fight at some point.

3) You can use AS more than once (or twice with Placate) per spawn.

I've said many times before: If ST damage is supposed to be a Stalker's niche they need to be really really good at it. ST damage is not something that most teams care about. AoE damage and buffs/debuffs are king. EVERYONE has ST attacks. In order for "ST damage" to be a Stalker's job they need to be way better than everyone else at it. Hopefully this patch will help.

My only complaint about MMs is that in really epic settings (crazy TFs and trials) you have to keep pets in BG mode to avoid being killed instantly. And pets that die super easily to the massive damage attacks going on that you can't even give commands to don't feel very useful.

I think they've done a little to alleviate that though. I swear the death patches from Apex don't hurt pets as much as they should.

And really if not feeling quite as useful as you might otherwise in a small subset of content is their only problem they're doing pretty good.

The reason Doms get less is their powersets have a very narrow application compared to literally any other AT. Every other AT in the game has a primary or secondary that is shared with at least 2, if not 3 other ATs. Dom primaries are only shared with one, and secondaries shared with nobody. It's a price that Doms pay for being so unique. Masterminds, Stalkers, and Blasters have to deal with this as well to a lesser degree.

I'd like to see more Dom stuff too, but time devoted to Doms is time that could be spent on sets with a much broader appeal. That doesn't mean the devs won't work on Doms ever, it just means you have to be patient with the speed of development of new sets for them.

Dark Control is pretty much an entirely brand new set with almost no ports. Doms are also getting Dark Assault. Not much heard about it yet except that its self-buff power is kind of like Power Build Up.

125% sounds high but 100% (equal to Scrapper and Blaster) would be a good start.

Though I also think Dom damage buffs should do more as well (since their damage scale used to be a lot lower than it is now).

Sounds good. I'm interested in the "Incarnate Merits" part. I need to be able to get some Emps and Astrals.