EvilRyu

Originally Posted by Brillig

Funny. I think this would be one of the worst times to do something like this. Between everyone playing more than usual, and the merger of the markets, the instability of the global servers... adding more people to the mix would be one of the dumbest decisions in MMO history.

What they should do is wait a month or so for things to settle down, then start pushing the new Praetorian experience with trials.

Originally Posted by Acemace

Really..It's from the place this was taken from..

;]

Originally Posted by Pheonyx

And before it even starts:

Free server transfers for the week does NOT equal an upcoming server merge. Please take your whine fests elsewhere.

Ashes to ashes,
Pheonyx

Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man

I read that the issue with this is that apparently it would cause a lot of server-end lag, since the game checks any object within that radius (200ft?) to see whether it's a teammate before applying the critical hit buff. Obviously, a lot more can happen within 200 feet of you than within 30 feet.

And as I'm not involved in the coding to City of Heroes, I'm not going to say how easy or difficult that would be to change, except to say that it costs more CPU time to compare sqrt((x2-x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2) to distance than it does to compare (x2-x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2 to distance^2.

(I missed that question on a test in college once. )

-----

Only if you insist on playing a Stalker as if it's a Scrapper. If a Stalker gains the ability to take down a boss in 2-3 hits fewer than a Scrapper, though, I'd consider that an advantage. As it rests now, even with the option to use Assassin's Strike, my Katana Scrapper will still usually take out a single boss more quickly than my Ninja Blade Stalker.

And... you don't feel like that would be overly powerful, especially now that you can get a Tanker on your team to hold aggro no matter what tasks you're doing? That just breaks balance too far in the other direction.

And to go further into your post, softcapped defenses vs damage resistance powers is an issue that plagues everyone in the game, not just Stalkers. Having a little bit of defense is ridiculous because you still get hit quite a lot and it hurts like hell. Having a lot of defense is ridiculous because you never get hit. It's a completely separate issue to what needs to happen to help Stalkers, and those who have softcapped their characters are very lucky that they decided to not lower individual AT defense caps to compensate when the idea was brought to the table after Issue 9.

Originally Posted by Soul Train

That's my point. Do Stalkers REALLY need fixing? or is it merely a social perception (left over from prior to the previous sets of changes) that painted Stalkers as "Soakers"?

If it's a social perception, team-based buffs that are noticeable would be the way to go. The occasional "Terrify" effect on a not-quite-lethal AS helps, but perhaps we need more than that.

Given my choice, having taken both a Scrapper and a Stalker to 50, I would say I enjoyed the Stalker more. It's true that they're not quite as good as a Scrapper when in prolonged fights. But Scrappers can't sneak in and do surgical takedowns.

A Stalker is a garrote wire; a Scrapper is a chainsaw. I really don't want the two to be blended, lest I lose fingers.

Originally Posted by Starsman

First off, I have not read through the entire thread.

I think that any boost to stalkers should come in the form of improvement to stalker tools, not an increase on direct survivability or damage/buff modifiers.


Here are some interesting ideas that cross my mind:

A) Placate gives the player a 5 second 500% recharge buff. The effect of this would be dependant on how much recharge you have in your build. If all your powers happen to have 95% recharge, and you are running hasten, it would be as good as good as speeding recharge of powers for up to 11.75 seconds (after the 5 seconds are through.) Without any enhancement you are buying yourself 20 seconds on all powers after the 5 seconds are done.

This includes the recharge of Placate itself, as well as any survival click power, attack or buildup.

This would give placate not just increase the utility of Placate, a stalker identity tool, but also make the stalker "move faster" in the shadows. Even if you get knocked out of the shadows you still will benefit from the recharge buff for the full 5 seconds. It for sure makes Placate much more useful in teams.

B) Alternatively, not conjointly, reduce the recharge of Placate and to 40 seconds base and make it a 3 target cone. This would allow for more often use of Placate and less chance of being knocked out of shadows by the neighbors of your target.

C) Make hide, the power, grant users a global run/jump/fly enhancement, about 100%, doubling the effect of any travel power you may have active, but only while hidden. This is more of an utility boost and may work cool with any other change.

D) My final option right now is to give all non T1 or T2 non-AoE attacks a chance to proc Placate effect + Stealth to enable a critical.


My main idea here is make stalkers work more like their anime equivalent. You know, those ninjas and other odd characters that show up, poof out, and strike again extremely fast and often. "Often" being the key word here.

Originally Posted by tarrantm

If the hitpoints and cap isn't going to be raised, Stalkers need Hide to passively add something like 20% extra resist all because the resistance secondaries scale horribly for Stalkers and that is a direct result of their low hitpoints (which indirectly translates into resists). It's not Ninjitsu or SR that gives everyone the impression that Stalkers are squishy.

Also, please don't increase their damage mods more than Scrappers unless u want PvP zones to turn into a Stalker vs. Stalker zone.

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe

This.

And, for that matter: in lieu of raising the damage/damage buff modifier, why not make crit damage unresisted for every stalker attack?

Why? This lets stalkers focus on what stalkers were made for: superior damage through criticals. The damage is less than scrappers on average when scrapping solo, and could actually (possibly only in my mind - numbers are my nemesis) out-damage scrappers on the criticals. It would make stalkers do vastly more damage on teams (especially with the critical radius expanded) and would give them the ability to score unresisted damage after the placate on their second target. (which, in my case, is frequently a second longbow warden).

Stalkers do not need help in the survivability department.

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

I think raising both the damage modifier AND the damage cap might be a bit too much.

Otherwise, I like the other 4 suggestions very much (the bullet points)

Originally Posted by Teldon

lordie and I just watched all he had done last weekend.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison

This is akin to the good stormy / bad stormy arguments. If the defender knows what he's doing, you can keep the enemies all together in the anchor debuffs.

It basically gives any ranged AT immunity to melee damage. On a team without melee, Force Bubble is insanely useful.

Originally Posted by docbuzzard

Evidently you've never bothered to actually use it or check the numbers. Liquefy is a spectacular "oh crap" button which will effectively take opposition right out of combat. The knockdown, hold, and massive to hit debuff will turn an enemy spawn into a bunch of toddlers on whiskey.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison

Ok, there goes every last bit of your credibility.

Force Bubble is a downright game changing powerful ability. And not just for MMs.

Originally Posted by docbuzzard

Did you actually just say Liquefy is worthless? Have you ever bothered to actually play the set? Good lord, Liquefy is a spectacular power.

Originally Posted by Frosticus

Well you certainly seem to know what you are talking about so far be it for me to correct so much misinformation but here goes...

GI is not FAR less potent than SI. For the purposes of providing invisibility against mobs they are identical. Identical as in they both provide full invisibility. SI would provide invisibility in situations where something is reducing your stealth radius, but that never happens as far as I know in pve.
Additionally GI costs about 1/20th the endurance of SI. GI's threat reduction also doesn't suppress when attacked, which SI's does.

Like I said in a previous post: SI is actually the redundant power not GI and GI is actually the better of the two powers in almost all situations. However, SI is a signature power and not going anywhere.



haha no. Maybe you should try out GI (or SI) sometime. The things you can do with it might just astound you based on your misconceptions.

Originally Posted by je_saist

won't happen.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...68&postcount=8

Also, Arcanaville has a good explination on the the design behind the illusion set: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...8&postcount=58

The short version is this: Illusion Control does not fit the intended Dominator Play style. Beyond anything else, building domination would be extremely difficult and would require significant changes to the set itself, which would no longer make it an illusion control.

Originally Posted by DMystic

Actually the fear effect and debuff comes from a temp power that is automatically given to and used by the target.

Which has the nifty side effect of reapplying should an enemy rez.

I suspect it was done this way to prevent it from effecting PvP.

I also think PvP is the reason Stalker Build Up is only an 80% boost rather than the 100% Scrappers and Tankers get.

Originally Posted by Siolfir

The scaling AS based on enemy rank didn't work well due to not all ranks being consistent, so it was arranged to work based on maxhp for a while, with varying parts being enhanceable vs unenhanceable in a few tests (I think 4% fully enhanceable was the best overall percentage given).

This was problematic due to several reasons, not the least of which was Stalkers killing GMs solo with AS/Placate because a damage-capped Stalker could take away 20% of anything's hp in one hit before resistance was accounted for. It also made AS worse against anything smaller than an AV - although only marginally so against bosses - so for 99% of the game it was a nerf despite making them the go-to AT for GM soloing, being able to take out nearly anything in less than a minute.