Interlink

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I always run if things get nasty... I'm no tank, I can't take on too many hits, and the defense ain't that great. Anyone who wants me to stay will have to MAKE me stay. Otherwise I'm out of there to hide and try another approach.

I don't get it... do people EXPECT stalkers, who are one hit wonders, to stay and fight?

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I think it is more that with experience people have realised that stalkers do not need to be one-hit-wonders in every case (defenders most obviously I think) and can follow up, but more that the OP complained that people hit with AS run... well, Duh!... and that this is hypocritical because a stalker whose AS has failed or who has bitten off more than he can chew (the regen example above) will run as much as the AS victim. There isn't a complaint that this is wrong - sometimes running is a good and necessary tactic; just not always.

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However, you should have petitioned him, mate. I only have Bridger's word that that will result in anything at all, but if you don't send the petition, this kind of thing will just continue until only the tools want to go to the PvP zones.

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Your prolly right. I've never had to petition anyone before so I was a bit reluctant. If theres a next time, i'l petition then put them on ignore.

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I have suspended judgement on this topic: if someone is annoying me, they are probably annoying other people as well. Petition them all and let the GMs sort it out.

Edit: adding comment on teleporting people and on broadcast insults:

Teleporting into drones: annoying, but debt free - valid tactic. Teleporting into other mobs: gives debt - griefing. /Petition the blaggard!

Broadcast insults: if it's excessively personal or obscene /petition and /ignore are your friends. Otherwise take it on the chin or give it back as you prefer.

Slotting Siphon Speed for accuracy and recharge is the way to go (for me anyway). I've never had travel powers on my kin/en defender and feel no lack. Though there was a stage where I just accepted that if I missed, I ran along slowly until it recharged.

Personally as a defender I can see where you are coming from but also see value in the defender specials: the reduced endurance costs once people start to get hurt and enhanced leadershp pool powers. Also there is the question of focus: if the controller is having to run the healing side, he isn't laying down control. Solo, the controllers have it by a mile, but defenders usefulness always seems to mne to accumulate the bigger the group is.

So that he can hide and come back to finish it later safely.


Edited to add further points:
Also the point is being made that stalkers complaining about people running is ridiculous: no-one runs like stalkers do the moment they realise they have been spotted.

Generalising of course: good stalkers will cut their tactics according to what they face and run or not based on that, same as any good player.

Running is a viable tactic. If you can't build to cope with it then either team with someone who can or shrug and just go 'ah well' when someone runs.

No-one is about to stand there on the point of death and wait to hand you a free kill.

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l even ammend the suggestion I made earlier. The problem isn't Hide. The problem is Assassin's Strike made from Hide because people can't fight back. Drop Assassin's Strike's interruptible period to 1 second, 4 second interrupt in PvE on a melee power serves absolutely no purpose. Make all stealth powers suppress as soon as you click it in PvP. Everyone gets 1 second to stop themselves from being insta-ganked, but you can gather +perception if you want more warning than that. Stalkers don't get an automatic "I win" against anyone that doesn't have the rare build necessary to see them, but when properly stalking, a 1-second window is more than enough.

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That's a pretty silly suggestion. 1s is nowhere near enough, given animation times of pretty much everything.

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It sounded good to me apart from the interruptible window. For my main about 3 seconds would be enough to allow me to fire an attack if I was really on the ball (energy blasts) but I suspect martial arts types may be quicker?

Oh, and I could brawl in 2 if I had brawl somewhere more accessible hmmmm... bind R targetnearestenemy $$ powerexec brawl (note: don't try using this to bind anything since it won't work - the syntax isn't right because I can't be bothered looking it up)

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This thread reminds me of the Gold Edition Coca-Cola yo-yo.

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OK, I'll bite, please explain why.

No problem with stalkers. Sometimes I see them, sometimes I don't. Sometimes they kill me or an ally, sometimes they don't. Whoever didn't die sometimes blasts them before they get away, sometimes he doesn't. It's a pretty good balance really.

I run tactics. I have run tactics since somewhere in summer, before PVP zones or stalkers figured in my game. If I rebuild for PVP it will involve changing maybe one power, and the jury is out on that one.

Stalkers need plenty of skill to hit a skilled target, or even a moderately cautious one.

An unskilled stalker will nail an unskilled target because the Stalker is supposed to be able to surprise the target. You are making unreasonable demands and you really didn't do yourself any favours by describing your preferred tactic as what could be termed the '0 skill blaster option' getting you killed by a team of 4 stalkers using a fairly crude ambush.

Edit: and my last observations of PVP stalkers were that most of them screwed up and had to spend a lot of time running away - hardly the mark of being effortlessly outstanding.

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Yep, it all evens out. Although technically they are as squishy as eachother, Corruptors could easily last longer.

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Evens out? You have got to be joking. The heals are nice, so are the buffs and debuffs. But lets face it, there's no balance between the two classes.

Did you check the class descriptions in CoV when creating a new char? It says that a corruptor has HIGH damage, and a secondary buff/debuff. Only... if it's high damage, why do some people expect me to be a SUPPORT class? I don't think anyone expects a blaster to act a supporting role.

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Because they are tools, and haven't worked out that you are not a defender, and also because you are the nearest thing to a defender that the vilains have. Villains are short on heals and buffs, so they expect you to do them because your AT can.

Across villain powersets the main disadvantage I have seen is numbers and cooperation. Basically, they don't have them. So their teams are worse.

Blaster vs corrupter I would expect to be about 50/50 in either a stand up fight or taking it in turns to be surprised (ie in an ambush I would expect the ambushee to plant most times).

As a kinetic, another defender is hopefully somewhere where I can't help much... but speed boost goes on everyone unless they ask to be left out. With an empath I usually operate as a forward healer and buffer for scrappers, tankers and blappers and leave the controllers and blasters st the back to the other defender.

Go and test it on the test server once you have earned the respec. It sounds viable to me.

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And as for using the stealth, build up, aim, snipe strategy to shoot some one in the back hows that any different than using hide,build up,AS

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It's plenty different: the blaster doing that needs beating with a nerf bat far more and harder than stalkers do for this reason: to AS you a stalker has to stnd next to you. If you have + perception powers running you get a good chance to see him and whack him with something, or a team mate can put him down while he tries to get away. The blaster can snipe from outside perception range and already has a head start for his road-runner impression.

The original poster is either a fool or a troll. Kicking off on 4 stealthed defenders might be survivable (but odds are they will see you coming and debuff you so far down that you get planted anyway) but just about any other AT x 4 = suicide or in this case blundering into a trap.

Oh: if you recognise yourself as one of the 4 stalkers from the OP's whine, well played and tell your 3 mates.

Today I got greeted in Sirens Call by sun stalker killing me at the entrance (hi there by the way. good play aside from that, and I only exclude that because the drone got you). I am a defender so it was one hit.

Was he overpowered? No! If I had been paying full attention I had time to hit a blast - I just didn't because my blast keys are a little further from my fingers than my kinetics keys.

Spending an hour in Sirens on Union which villains were noticeably good/evil/hard/got the entire team of 8 heros looking for the SoB to put him back in the hospital? Wasn't sun stalker (partly because he left after a while, but even so). It was that well known [irony] complained about because they are universally too powerful PVP class THE MASTERMIND!!1!one! [/irony] Hate Machine played his AT well and was certainly generating hatred and fear of himself. Hate machine, I salute you. Brief appearances from other villains mainly demonstrated only this: that a team or two of 4-14 heros total can paste any one villain (duh!) but when a brute got a couple of us arriving one after the other we went down. When a pair of corruptors tag-teamed the edge of our group people went down. Hate machine picked off one person and pummeled them several times and was a sod to track down when he disappeared. The other stalker, I assume a newbie with only hide, got spotted and chased back to the villain base several times.

So for sirens I reckon this*: balance is pretty good apart from there having been more heros than villains, and heros having been in bigger teams. And that will change.

*Didn't see a dominator in action. Good. the holds i got were bad enough.

Leave the stalkers alone. Your basic problem is just that: your problem.

I have also used repel as a resuing tool when some fool of a blaster has got himself surrounded in front of th efront line... scatter the enemies around him every which way so he can run.

Oh, and yu can play repellion if you can find another kinetic

Apologies to Marquand, I was rude... you happened to be in the way when I ran out of patience with a lot of this thread.

I fundamentally disagree that everyone should always have a chance. If my trick is sneaking up and attempting to assassinate you, there should be a reasonable chance that that should work. Not to the one-shot point, but fast enough that you have to be both on full health and react quickly to survive (or have a lot of hitpoints). Similarly, if I am running tactics and have other see-through-stealth buffs/powers and I see the stalker coming when he think he is are safe, I should be able to go 'ready boys?' and have my three blaster mates (who, for the sake of argument, are invisible) smear him across the scenery after I tag him with one of my feeble defender blasts. Or if I am a controller and I get the drop on someone from stealth or otherwise I should be able to hold them long and well enough that I can do a little dance, /em batsmash them and catch screenshots of it before deciding whether or not to kill them. I have my own plans for a couple of surprises I want to try and give people, and I expect to be surprised. Stealth is a good pvp strategy - and the stalker isn't the only one who makes use of it (Ill/* controllers anyone?) On an open plain, in fully balanced teams if such a thing exists (anyone tried hero pentad v villain pentad by the way?), at the same levels, both actual and SK/exemp, then in theory there should be a 50/50 chance either way. But you and I know that isn't going to happen so there will always be individual powers(ets) that mess up other powers(ets) or even ATs (I figure brutes must hate being the target of a siphon speed).

One shotting from full has to go, and it will go - but for now more than that seems to be overkill.

They have every right to make their opinion heard.

Good.

I've just had my coffe wear off so I am grumpy and just ran out of the will to be hugely constructive.

Note: You have now made your opinion heard.

Note: It isn't going to change.

Note: Many, many people have pointed out many many times how to get the best out of PVP. You also have the right to ignore them. But then you may find you don't enjoy PVP.

I am not scared of stalkers. I am a defender. I am squishy. I have no intention of changing my build for PVP, I like it how it is.

I recognise that in CoH a team is the intended way to play the entire game. Even if a stalker gets you, your team should be able to deal with him. You don't have a team? Then deal with the fact that a PVP soloer will always be in mortal danger. I've done it - I was as nervous as a long tailed cat in a rocking chair test centre - so I kept moving and all the rest of it as much as possible and I got away with it. I was lucky and also fully prepared to go home or get a team if I kept getting nailed.

PVP is not going to change to make it designed for solo. If you really want that, go and play something else, or just stay out of PVP.

PVP is fun. Nothing comes close to the thrill of having other people after you. Very little puts my pulse up so high so fast. It works like it is supposed to, there are countermeasures and the biggest countermeasure is to have a bunch of mates around you - and you can do that with any AT. A stalker probably won't start on you if it is going to be MAD.... the all stalker teams that will appear eventually will be scary, but guess what? they won't be able to hold, heal or hit at any significant range.

I've had more coffee now and rant over.

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The attack doesn't get you anything. The aggro is generates towards you contributes plenty

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I believe it gives you as much as a brawl when you first turn it on...

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The point where you first avoid being one shotted from a hidden foe is when you are chooing your powers, not when you are stood in the middle of sirens call expecting a fair fight! Your chance at a fair fight is when picking your powers. You get the wrong ones and its TS mo fo.

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The victorious army wins, and then seeks battle; the losing army seeks battle then attempts to win ...?

Put brawl on auto fire then forget it. Can't remember the names, but I tend to go:

<target> brawl, attack 1, brawl, attack 2, brawl, attack 1, brawl attack 2, attack 1, build up, big attacks...

Basicly brawl fires between attacks - for my brute, brawl = breathing, it barely counts as part of the attack chain.

So this thread is 'I teamed with an idiot'. Stick him on ignore. Bad players are bad players, whatever the AT.

Germaine to this discussion: there is a suggestion on, oddly enough, the suggestions thread linky that suggests removing ID and power details from all players in PVP zones (possibly excepting your own team).

Result: you can't tell who in a team is the squishy unless you watch them for a while (gives stalkers something to do and chance to make a mistake (eg attempt to AS the tank)) but perhaps more importantly makes villain types better for pvp (especially masterminds - it wouldn't be immediately obvious which person you should nail to make half the opposition fall over). Please wander over, read and comment there.

And brawl costs almost no End usage...

OI! I'm kinetics!

When I am facing a mix of hero ATs (thinking back to S4 really here) I have a preferred attack priority of Controller, defender, blaster, scrapper, tank , possibly swapping the controller and defender over based on observation.

What thoughts do people have about what villains to smack first? I open the floor to veteran pvpers there....