Hunter2357

I hope this has not been stated before, but I see 1 potential problem with this change that should be addressed.

I love what this alteration is doing for SR scrappers and Ice tankers.... however, when it comes to Invulnerability there is an issue.

Under the current system unyielding gives a -5% defense effect across the board.

This essentially enhanced the to-hit value of minions from 50 to 55%... lieutenants from 62.5% to 67.5%... and bosses from 75% to 80%.

If this change goes into effect without altering the unyielding defense debuff we will get the following result.

Minions will go from 50% to 55% (no change here)

Liuetenants will go from 62.5% to 68.75 (an increase over current values)

Bosses will see the largest change as they go from 75% to 82.5% (another increase over current values)

This can be rectified by adjusting the unyielding debuff to compensate and I recommend that such an adjustment take place to prevent a nerf from comming out of what is supposed to be a buff to defense based sets.

It should probably be noted that this change will alter the to-hit floors that are attainable for various villain classes.

The reason for this is that accuracy multipliers are applied after the to-hit calculations are performed and the minimum of 5% is applied.

As such, if all bosses have 50% accuracy (enough to bring their 50% to-hit up to 75%)... then the absolute minimum their to-hit value would be able to be reduced to is 7.5% as opposed to the current 5%.

Not that this sort of an alteration is a big deal, but I just thought it was important to mention for the interest of full disclosure... unless of course there is something else going on in the to-hit calculations that I am unaware of.


EDIT - Upon reading parts of the thread I did not skim through it seems as though Arcana beat me to it lol... good job

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Why not use surpression here:

Brawl: 50% chance surpressing 1 toggle for 10s
Assassin Strike: 100% chance 1 toggle for 15s, 75% chance 1 toggle for 15s, 50% chance 1 toggle for 15s

Just some example numbers, they would have to be tweaked of course.

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"tweaked" is rather moderate considering the severity of your example... in many ways this is actually worse than the current situation.

You would be enhancing the chance for toggle effect in both brawl and AS significantly, while at the same time increasing the time needed to get ones shields back up for any tank or scrapper.

Most defensive toggles only take around 3 seconds to recharge and have an activation time of roughly 1 to 2 seconds... as such what can be accomplished in around 5 seconds now would take 3 times as long, coupled with the enhanced odds you suggest just makes toggle dropping more potent as opposed to a reduction in capacity.

With the rate at which opponents can brawl and with a 50% chance with each strike for an associated 10 second suppression, you can pretty much be assured that no melee AT will ever have their toggles helping them.

Needless to say I hope that the actual solution is VERY different than what you are proposing (i.e. if they are going with a suppression system that it be sophisticated enough to take into account how long a particular power takes to reactivate under the current system and not just select arbitrary and universal times)

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is that your way of saying it's best to agree to disagree

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That is exactly what I am saying lol

I have tried to sway your opinion with a few anecdotes from my experience, as well as a few numbers I crunched.

You have tried to sway my opinion with your own experiences and some areas where you feel defensive sets have an obvious disadvantage.

And as we can both see we have not managed to adjust eachothers view points much... there is nothing wrong with that of course... I respect the fact that you have a strong opinion on this issue, and if I cannot convince you otherwise it means my arguments are not solid enough.

I do thank you though for the link to the hero build information... I will try and gather some numbers for a more complete analysis between stalker and scrapper regen and SR sets... when I have the time I will post my findings on a separate thread and I hope you will take a look to tell me what you think ... while we may disagree, I do value your opinion.

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Dull pain regenerates you health so it's not gone per say and resistance is making you take less damage. unless you just play with just invincibility on you cannot say that the 90% that was taken away from your HP was mitigated with defense.

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Allow me to paint a scenario I just played out and you will see what I mean about defense making ALL the difference.

Dull pain was not used in this case so that it's sudden HP boost does not come into the equation.

I approached a lvl 52 Boss... He smacked me and began to reduce my HP at a phenominal rate... Then I double stacked Divine Avalanch for an additional 48% defense... Suddenly I could stand there all day and not worry about death.

As such it is fair to conclude that without the extra defense I was going to be dead in about 4 seconds... but with the extra defense I was suddenly able to stay alive even with 15% of my health and not worry about death at all.

Sure the boss could have smacked me and killed me with the 5% to hit floor (which I am not even convinced I hit... it is more likely I got him down to 25%).

The problem with your argument is that you were under the assumption that my defense at the beginning of the fight was the same as at the end... when I was getting trounced I had minimal defense... when the fight became sustainable I had substantial defense.

As such it is VERY reasonable to conclude that the defense is what made the difference... as I proceeded to chew some greens to up my health and then shut off unyielding and temp invulnerability and was still doing just fine. (i.e. resistance did not cut it... but defense did the job)

You can be convinced that defense is terrible... that has not been my experience... in fact I have found defense to be a GREAT boon to my survivability in situations where resistance just does not cut it.

Your experience might be different of course... by my own experiences and the numbers do not agree with you.

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Simple fact it is much easier to trump defense then resistance you can debate that all you want, but there are simply more then enough tools in either secondaries and primaries of AT to do the job.

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I do not need to debate anything here... you have stated something as "fact" that is really just your "opinion".

As such the only rebuttal I need to offer is that I do not agree with you and that I have a different opinion on the matter.

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you have defense, resistance and dull pain you are not only relying on one mitigating factor there is no way you can say one for sure is saving you.

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Absolutely I can... when dull pain has already been used and I am down to 10% of my HP... it is not getting hit that is keeping me alive... not anything else.


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you do know that the translation from def and resistance is not as clear cut as that which is the case states made when comparing lucks to sturdies.

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When were we comparing lucks to sturdies?

You seem to desire to alter the topic as my only contention here is that defensive sets are not a piss poor as you seem to be suggesting.

Defensive sets are not as reliable as resistance sets... but they have their own inherent bonuses that resistance sets do not recieve.

For example... when contending against a foe who tosses mez effects at you... even if both a resistance set and a defensive set have the same mez protection... the defensive set is much better off.

Why is that might you ask?... Simple... because a mez effect that does not land cannot stack with other mez effects to stun you... a resistance based build does not dodge those mez effects so they stack up more easily than on a defensive build.

The situation is not "clear cut"... in some ways resistance has benefits and in some ways defense has benefits... but to just assert that resistance is better than defense is incorrect.

You seem to be very well versed in the methods to circumvent defense... such as acc and to-hit bonuses... in a similiar manner, damage boosts effect resistance builds (and if you argue that the damage boosts also affect defensive builds I will just have to remind you that acc boosts also affect resistance builds)... if you would like me to go into the mathematics of it I would be happy to, but I really do not think it is necessary to make this post any lengthier than it already is.

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If it were so then defensive sets would not be viewed as problematic would they.

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Just because a number of people have convinced themselves that something might be the case does not necessarily make it so.

In this scenario the numbers really are the definitive factor here.

You do not have to believe me, but on my invuln scrapper it is often his defense that saves me and not his resistance.

Allow me to set up a hypothetical scenario for you here and I believe it will illustrate why people "perceive" defensive sets to be worse off than resistance sets.

Let us assume there exists an AT that has 1000 HP... let us assume that the player in question then has the choice to select 90% resistance to all damage and zero defense... or 90% defense to all damage and zero resistance.

From a mathematical perspective their survival rates over time are identicle.... there is no difference whatsoever

Let us now assume they are put up against a foe who attacks for 500 damage per hit.

We know for a FACT in this situation that the resistance based player will die in 20 hits... no doubt about it.

So far as the defense based player in concerned we do not know how many hits it will take to defeat them... it could be 2... or it could be 200.... but on average it will be around 20.

The reason that people "perceive" defensive sets to be lacking is because it is very easy to ignore the 200 misses... and instead the mind emphasizes the few times that the computer got lucky and floored them in 2 hits... a 1 out of 100 chance.

When you play for over a year and are attacked hundreds of thousands of times that 1 out of a 100 chance crops up more than once and leaves the player with this impression of "wow... this sucks... I die so easily".

But that impression is a false impression... the same way we might be inclined to call someone a poor driver for getting into 2 accidents within the course of 2 weeks... it is easy to do when we ignore the fact that they have been driving for 20 years and never got into an accident even once before that.

The human mind is designed to emphasize tragedy and failure... that is the reason why defensive sets are thought of by some as lacking... with resistance sets you know what you are in for, so the consistance makes it "feel" more effective when in actuality it is not.

I am making that statement because I am working under the assumption that all scrapper sets are "roughly" equivalant in terms of survivability. Will one set fair better against certain enemies?... Sure... but in general they all fair about the same.

I do understand that you believe that all defensive based sets are pretty much the bottom of the barrel.... I personally do not think that is the case.

Defensive sets are probabalistic... resistance sets are reliable... but that does not necessarily make 1 better than the other.

Based upon that kind of thinking stalkers have much better damage as their criticals are reliable and scrapper criticals are a roll of the dice.

Mathematically it all evens out over time.

Defensive sets may enter one battle and not even get scratched... they may enter a similiar battle 2 days later and get creamed because they get hit by 5 lucky shots in a row... that is the nature of the beast, but it does not make it bad.

Thank you for the link by the way, I will try and work out some numbers later.

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blasters do more damage and 33% of their damage is unresistable

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At present stalker AS damage is 86% unresistable... that's right 86%... because 6/7th's of it is critical damage.

As such I do not see blaster unresistable damage as being important to consider here.... especially considering that if you added up all the damage doled out by a stalker in a given period of time... I bet far more than 30% of it is unresistable.

I also was not counting their top tier powers by the way... that 66% defensive capacity of a scrapper is derived completely without considering elude.

DarkPhoenix, if you would be kind enough to provide me with some base numbers for the stalker defensive sets I would be happy to run a comparison between them and stalkers under various accuracy slotting regimes... if you do not have those numbers that is okay too, I will just have to wait for them to come in from another source.

So far as buildup and aim go... those enhance damage as well, so resistance sets are equally effected... build-up adds 100% damage for scrappers and blasters and 80% damage for stalkers (I believe these numbers to be correct, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong)... these are only transitory buffs, and as such should not be considered the normal encounter scenario... especially when a stalker has the option to wait and see when their target uses these powers and then to attack while they are still recharging (effectively taking them out of the equation entirely).

Without considering ACC enhancers, SR stalkers have 66% the suvivability of an SR scrapper plus better defenses versus aoe's.

Their defenses are not quite as pitiful as you might be convinced... they are actually fairly decent.

With the help of Quason and the numbers he provided (I am not sure if they are 100% accurate... but they should be a pretty close approximation, more than good enough for the purposes of this discussion) I am pretty confidant in asserting that stalkers defensive capacity falls smack in the middle between scrappers and blasters.

This is taking into account both hit points and their defensive sets... but completely ignoring offensive capacity and buffs/debuffs their foes might encounter.

Needless to say, I am not so sure the conclusions you are drawing by saying that their defenses are only euivalant to 1 luck is really very valid... the reason is that while a blaster can achieve 25% def by popping 1 luck... a fully slotted sr stalker or scrapper will achieve 50% def with that single inspiration. So how are the defenses so useless?

Taking all factors into account SR stalkers and scrappers function as if they ALWAYS have 1 luck running... plus they have elude and status protection to make their sets even more defensive than a squishy AT running that same single inspiration.

Personally I do not feel the SR set is as useless as you seem to be claiming... they recieve roughly 50% damage mitigation against EVERYTHING... compare that to an Invuln scrapper who maxes out at around 50% to s/l and 30% to everything else except psi... and suddenly SR looks like under average conditions they are in a better defensive position.

So far as the numbers I ran... Stalkers should see around 66% the survival of a comparably slotted Scrapper.

Blasters by comparison should see around 66% the survival of a Stalker who opts to slot out their defenses... should they choose to ignore their defenses, that is another story.

You have really touched on a great many issues here that while not a "one-shotting" issue... are things that really need to be thought about.

At present the mez scenario has been solved to a certain extent by "sprinkling" the power pools with various defensive measures.

I can take health if I want to be less susceptible to sleep.

I can take heal self if I want to be less susceptible to disorients.

I can take acrobatics if I want to be less susceptible to knockdowns.

There are MANY types of mez effects and the like which interrupt ones ability to use their powers... so it is not an "all or nothing" situation.

Perception as it stands now is "all or nothing" and that is where the problem resides... if everyone takes tactics, not only will stalkers be unable to hide from anyone... but tactics gives overlapping to-hit buffs which will negate their defensive sets entirely.

If tactics is the solution then stalkers are in BIG trouble if the gaming population decides to listen to that advice because if everyone takes tactics just to contend with stalkers... suddenly stalkers become completely useless.

The solution to the perception problem is probably to make it less two sided... it needs to have more depth to it for it to function well.

Perhaps a system where all chars have an inherently boosted perception directly in front of them... that way a stalker needs to sneek up behind their target... but if for some reason their target spins around there is a chance they will be seen and attacked.

This way everyone has a "chance" to see a stalker when he is nearby... not a situation where you are guaranteed to see them, or you cannot see them period.

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Ok lets take your reasoning into account, lets remove Assassin's strike for the reason that when used on another player it has a good chance of killing the other player provided the stalker is hitting close to damage cap.

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Who said this was my reasoning?

I never once advocated for AS to be removed from the game, and the fact that you are stating that I have only goes to show that you are not so much interested in having an honest debate as you are at furthering your own position at all costs (even if that cost is understanding the positions of others).

What you have done here is created your own argument to argue against... I have stated NONE of the things you have said... and then you claim I am wrong.

I might very well make up your argument too... however I actually addressed the content of your post, so you can be rest assured that my arguments were against your actual position.

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Eliminate AS or reduce the damage by 1/2 even would make stalkers uneffective in pvp and even less effective solo in pve

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No one is saying to eliminate AS or to just cut the damage by 50% (or at least I am not)... so why don't you see my position for what it is instead of this craziness that you are purporting it to be for your own convenience.

Next you will say I am advocating for stalkers to be taken out of the game completely... well let me cut you off at the pass and tell you that is also not something I desire.

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Enjoy your dream, in fact, keep it your dream.

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Sorry... everything you stated is your own delusional fantasy... not mine.


All I have been trying to tell you from the beginning is that the name of a power does not impact the actual game mechanics... NONE of the powers function entirely because of what they are called... as such any argument predicated upon the name is ultimately flawed.

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And for the record, I think you should find a way to loosen up about gettin killed in pvp

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I also never stated any occurance that would lead one to believe I was getting killed in pvp... another made up argument you have presented here.

Feel free to argue for 1-shotting... but I would ask that you refrain from telling me what my opinion is when you do so. If that is all the ammo you have in your logical arsenal then you are shooting blanks.

Now if you desire to present your own game experience... and your own opinions, I would love to read them... but the second you start telling me what my own position is without backing it up with evidence (i.e. a quote) is the second you lose credibility so far as I am concerned.

The correction to your chosen method of argument is hardly "trollish"... your reasoning went something like this :

Stalkers should be able to 1-shot because they have a power with the name "assassin's strike"... you are basing your entirely rationale upon a flashy word the developers chose for the power.

Here is your actual statement :

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I wonder why they would call it assassin strike if you couldn't in theory kill a foe in a single blow

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As such I am confused as to why you do not have issues with the "invincibility" power not actually making a char invincible.

Or why when a blaster goes "nova" that the entire city isn't vaporized... because we know that a nova is an exploding star.

If you want to argue for keeping one-shotting please be my guest... but you are going to have to do better than the name of the power justifying the effect because just about every power in the game does not perform exactly as it's name might suggest.

That is the reason why the line of reasoning you offer is completely without merit in this case.

What you have to realize is that the effect of a given power goes well beyond what the power is called... most are much weaker than the name might indicate... so why should "assassin's strike" be exempt from this prevalant theme in the way the names of powers, and their ultimate effects are associated?

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What you can say is that Stalkers probably seem a little more squishy to themselves than they actually are, because a lot of the powers that allow people to see and attack them-Tactics, Targetting Drone, Aim, and yellow skittles-also (effectively) lower their defenses by raising their attackers ability to hit them. On the other hand, Stalkers probably seem less fragile than they are in reality to people who can't see them, because having the initiative and placate combine for fantastic effective defense. Stalker Defenses on top of that is icing-though it's pretty darn tasty icing.

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You have struck on an amazing synergy that I had not considered... the fact that most of the powers that permit you to see a stalker also directly counteract their defensive capabilities.... so in order to even contend with a stalker... you must invariably negate their defensive sets.

I do dissagree with you that defense is inherently more difficult to consider than resistance... I find them both to be equally easy to deal with and once I have some numbers on the stalker defensive sets I'd be happy to set up some information relating to a 0 ACC enhancer situation, 1 ACC enhancer situation, 2 ACC enhancer situation etc... it really is not as formidable as some people seem to think.

The same way acc enhancement directly counteracts defenses... damage enhancement directly counter acts resistance... as when we have 50% resistance to a power at baseline... and then double the damage we suddenly are dealing with 100% of the base power damage again, as opposed to half of it.

Personally I do not understand why stalkers would advocate that the solution to the problem they set up is for everyone to team with lots of leadership... IF that actually came to pass, stalkers would be completely useless, because everyone in the pvp zones would have massive +perception and massive to-hit buffs.

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Assassin Strike. The Stalkers greeting card of sorts. This attack does massive damage when the stalker is hiding. This is broken up into two words. Assassin: N One who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person. And Strike: V To hit sharply, as with the hand, the fist, or a weapon.

Well An assassin strike means roughly a sharp hit by someone meant to murder another person. An Assassin. I wonder why they would call it assassin strike if you couldn't in theory kill a foe in a single blow...... Wow ya know?

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Personally I do not approve of your method of reasoning here... I see it as being on par with the statemens "scrappers scrap", "blasters blast", or "tankers tank".

The names we see in the game for powers are not supposed to be indicative of their effect... or should all broad sword scrappers get up in arms that their "head splitter" attack does not actually split anyone head open.

Presumably getting ones head split open should constitute an instant kill every time... so based upon your logic any attak that "sounds" lethal should be equivalant to instant death.

I also suppose the katana analogues will require new graphics as that final attack certainly does not look like a "golden dragonfly"... it looks suspiciously like an attack that would cleave someone in half... so I guess we are going to have to call it "body splitter" and make that one an instant death attack too.

Just as a side note... ONLY energy stalkers have "assassins strike"... the rest have different names for their attacks... so I guess you are going to have to verbally analize all of them to fit them into this theory.

Plus... to further your analysis... if we are going to go strictly by the names of things... what about the word "stalker" implies they are able to kill anything?... I guess they should only be good at following things around.

Unfortunately that sounds like a pretty boring job if you ask me.

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Ok,the relavance of a stalkers hp is bs. My controller's hps is at the bottom of the rack.

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Just in the interest of keeping this discussion factual, in warburg stalkers and controllers BOTH have 885 HP. So if your controllers hps are at the bottom of the rack... guess what your opinion about stalker HP must be?

As such I think it is important that we stop advocating that one AT has "terrible" defensive capacity while another has "great" defensive capacity until we run a few numbers to confirm or deny such a position.

From the way things seem to be turning out, the survivability of stalkers is pretty close to midway between scrappers and blasters.

With more accurate base power numbers I could work out the specifics.

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A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.

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Your analysis here is actually a little off... here is why

That 28% defense is subtracted from the base to-hit of 50%

Therefore you are going from 50% to 22% which is equivalant to a factor of 2.27 increase in survivability over an AT with zero defense.

Your stalker who has 23.5% defense will end up increasing his survivability by a factor of 1.89.

Therefore if we take scrappers to be the baseline HP we get survival figures something like this :

Scrapper = 1
Stalker = .62
Blaster = .40

This also ignores ACC enhancements and to-hit buffs but shows pretty clearly that with the numbers given the stalker has roughly 2 thirds the survivability of the scrapper.

But the stalker is also 55% more survivable than a blaster.

You are absolutely correct... I spent some more time in warburg tonight in an effort to get a direct stalker number... and when I did it was 885... I could have saved myself some time if I knew you were going to respond so quickly

As such it is reasonable to assume that stalkers have roughly the defensive capacity that is equivalant to 75% of what scrappers have.

Certainly not squishy... but definately a noticable difference.

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Really? 90%? I'd heard 75%. Can you point me to your numbers?

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This is the data I collected in warburg earlier today :

Scrapper HP = 1165
Tanker HP = 1630
Blaster HP = 1050
Controller HP = 885

Brute HP = 1305
Corruptor HP = 930
Master Mind HP = 700

I was unable to gather the direct value of a stalkers HP at lvl 38... but I have been told that they follow the same progression as blasters which would indicate they possess 1050.

I am also under the impression that stalkers possess more HP than a similiar level corruptor... which would indicate that they have more than 930.

This sets a lower limit at 80% of a scrappers HP with a strong likelihood that is it 90%.

If you can gather a more direct measurement I would be happy to include it here... I am infering the 90% result as opposed to measuring it directly since I do not have a villain high enough in level to check from the villain side.... and it is not really possible to check up on a stalker from the hero side.

I agree with you on just about all points presented... I was not trying to assert that the stalker community is forming a propaganda campain.

What I am trying to get at is why some stalkers (not all obviously) are under the impression that they are defensivly weak and unable to stand toe to toe with anything whatsoever.

I believe that if more stalkers were convinced of the fact that they actually have decent defenses, which I think we have proven that they do... then perhaps they would begin to feel comfortable engaging in battle as opposed to the current situation we have.

I do believe the greater issue of 1 shotting needs to be addressed for all AT's... but it would be a nice side effect if the current belief that stalkers are made of paper was somehow done away with in preference of a more realistic perception.

The data that has been discussed here really just seems to indicate that the general perception is incorrect.

Wherever it came from I do not know, but the theories you present are certainly plausible. Hopefully reason and data will triumph over the false impression.

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Stalker and Scrapper DEF numbers are identical, and in fact you could concider Stalker defense even higher than Scrappers' due to the addition of Hide. The balancing factor is the fact that Stalkers have lower base damage and much less HP.

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Thank you very much for that information as it helps to clear up an issue that has been causing some confusion.

I have already presented numbers that suggest that Stalker HP = 90% of Scrapper HP

That is not "much" less... so if their defenses are identical + Hide... then how can anyone consider stalkers to be "squishy"?

It seems to me that identical defensive capacity combined with 90% HP indicates that stalkers possess 90% the survivability of scrappers from a purely defensive standpoint.

As such the only way it seems plausible that stalkers are not experience these copious defenses is if they are not slotting their defenses to the same extent that a scrapper would... and if this is the case then it begs the question why?

I believe the answer is that under most circumstances a stalker does not need their defenses to survive pvp encounters... high defense + the Hide, stealth, AS, placate scenario is almost redundant as with the latter the length of any pvp encounter is reduced to 10 seconds or less.

One does not need scrapper level defenses to survive for 10 seconds, hence why bother slotting those defenses?... and with unslotted defenses we get the claim... "stalkers are squishy".

I maintain that if they possess 90% the HP and identicle defenses and are squishy... then I suppose scrappers must be squishy as well... with this data it is just not possible to assert that stalkers possess increadibly different levels of defense than scrappers.

When it comes to pvp the lower base damage does not even come into play as that would require the stalker sticking around for the remainder of the fight... which in most cases they do not because they claim they are "squishy".

I wonder why someone who thinks stalkers are so feeble would feel it necessary to run away from a scrapper who just got detoggled by their AS and reduced to 15% of their HP.

Ultimately I am beginning to think that this whole "stalkers are weak and can't stand up to another AT" argument is just a smoke screen.

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No, I do not think they squishy, and would never argue that they are. They do have fewer HP..less than 85% of a scrappers as you say. And on the defensive side, their numbers are lower, especially when it comes to the Ninjitsu set, the trade of for that, is they have utility.

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I do not think they are squishy either... and I just did a test to find out about the HP situation... it is NOT less than 85%.

I went to warburg and here is the data I collected :

Scrapper HP = 1165
Tanker HP = 1630
Blaster HP = 1050
Controller HP = 885

Brute HP = 1305
Corruptor HP = 930
Master Mind HP = 700


I was unable to get a direct number for stalkers as they are hidden and hence cannot be checked up on.

However, from what I have seen they are on the same HP schedual as blasters, and certainly have more than corruptors.

Therefore I am going to assume that a lvl 38 stalker has 1050 HP... or at the very least more than 930.

That means they have 90% the HP of a scrapper (and certainly not less than 80%... which means my saying "on the order of 85%" was right on target)... if your info is wrong about the hit points... exactly why am I to believe that your info about the defenses is correct?

Given this data it is reasonable to conclude that stalkers possess roughly 85-90% the defensive capacity of a scrapper... so why do we keep hearing how terrible stalker defenses are?

Regen is generally considered one of the best scrapper sets... why would 90% of that suddenly become seen as squishy?

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Lol, I don't even know where to start w/that one

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What is there to say?... if stalker defensive sets have the same base values in their powers as the associated scrapper sets, how can any stalker claim that they are "squishy" but that scrappers have great defenses?

The ONLY way to make such an argument is if the stalker in question has ignored their defenses entirely... either that or they are lying... or scrappers are squishy too.

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As usual when a nerf is called for, instead of people actually playing the AT the majority just jump on the band wagon and make assumptions of how it is.

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I play a stalker... I do NOT think they are as feeble as some stalkers seem to be claiming in an effort to set up a "nerf defense argument".

Tell me... do you think stalkers are squishy?... and if so, do you think the base numbers in the defensive sets are comparable to the scrapper base numbers?

Sure they have less HP... but they only have marginally less HP, it is on the order of 85% scrapper HP... not exactly a pitiful number.

If the stalker defensive sets base numbers are much less than that of stalkers then the argument is different... but so far as all the data I have seen, they are pretty much the same.

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To say nothing of the fact that "low defenses" is apparantly not true at all. Everything I'm hearing and reading says Stalker Defenses=Scrapper defenses. Thats not low by any reasonable definition of the word.

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"low defenses" is actually true under some circumstances... here is how it happens... a player realizes that with Hide + Stealth + Placate + AS... they only need to be able to survive 10 seconds in order to be safe.

As such they load up on powers that support their "main" strategy... and completely ignore slotting their defensive powers, just leaving them with the base slot and maybe 1 more.

So yes... scrapper level defenses when the powers are completely unslotted is "low"... but stalker defenses are not low because they must be... they are low because the aformentioned strategy is often so fool proof that there is no reason to slot for the better defenses that are capable of.

It would be like a tanker refusing to take any of their primary powers and then claiming they can't take a hit or stand toe to toe with the enemy.... sure it might be true... but they built themselves that way on purpose.