Jacqueline

Yay Fatty! Big, err, comgratulations!

Now get Psyche to 50...

Yay! About bloody time, but also: Yay!

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if you are an orange name to me, i will do anything and everything in my power to put you down

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This needs to be put on the door to all pvp zones.

I'm becoming tired of people telling me not to use hide, people who complain about being attacked by another player in a PVP zone and the endless streams of people who think it's ok to swear at a stalker for doing what the AT was designed to do.

The topper for me was this week when I received a tell from a recently dead hero which, basically, suggested I'd completely misunderstood the point of a pvp zone when I killed her. Because I didn't call her out, tell her somewhere to meet me, then switch off hide and fight with my pants around my ankles, I wasn't pvping "properly."

Having killed her, I received a tell saying "Why do you even bother coming to pvp if you're going to do that?"

Now I can tell her, succinctly. "You are an orange name to me. I will do anything and everything in my power to put you down"

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Thanks for the tips, on ghostblade my strategy is to hide behind things or hover above the battlefield. When a target looks hot i hit build up, TP beside them, and queue AS/placate and my follow up. Its that strategy that has me thinking I could possibly chuck stealth (even high perception targets wont see me till i'm up close, and I've run into ppl using the same strategy on frosty). On ghostblade i've attacked duellers where there were sympathetic villains to give a "ninja alert" to my targets. I'm going dark/ninja, for the fear and higher survivability. Probably fly and TP. I havent found an effective way of useing tpfoe, i guess tpfoe and queued fear, something i didnt have on ghostblade. Anywho, if its rubbish i guess thats what respecs are for

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I have superjump and teleport and my strategy is almost the same, except I use superjump to go in and fire BU on the down part of the jump. It's taken a lot of practise, but I can usually land next to someone now. My TP is then an emergency button for when I get immob'd or slowed.

Many's the time though that I've landed next to someone, whacked the AS key and they see me straight away and then it's all down to my defences whether I get the AS off, or they hit me. I guess this is the bit I'll be most interested in hearing about your success - can you get your AS off without being interrupted.

Having fear in the back pocket will probably help your stalker a lot.

I haven't found an effective way of using TPFoe either. So much so that I keep forgetting I've got it. I think maybe once I've used it to grab a fleeing hero when my hide was already down, for a placate/impale combo.

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Back on topic, I've never wanted, needed or used stealth in PvP.

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Thats interesting.
The reason i think i MAY be able to get away with it is because i hide behind buildings about 90% of the time anyway. How did you get on without stealth? My only concern is with people who go out there way to hunt me, like that [censored] frosty mcneil

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Yeah, bearing in mind you were seeing straight through Hide + Stealth at a decent range, Frosty, I'd be concerned for your health.

I try and keep buildings and other things in the way too, even though I'm using hide + stealth, but I think there could be a problem at the point of attack. One of the things I learned to carry over to my Hero ATs by playing a stalker is to have a quick activation, high accuracy attack in your build, with which you can knock off hide.

(For my empath that's Power Push, which is something like 97.5% accuracy to an even and I then have it slotted with 2ACC. PP has an added bonus in that it's 100% knockback too, so you have a stalker who's out of hide and possibly prone too.)

So you may well be able to sneak up on folks, using terrain, but when you land and click AS, they have four seconds to spot you and slap you and then your AS is off and your is hide down.

There are obviously plenty of stalkers who are working just fine around that, it seems, but I'm not one of them.

Maybe I'll wheel out Icy Ewe when you get to BB and we can reverse roles.

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smoke flash has activation of 1.8 seconds and a 20ft PBAoE

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Cool - I remember when it came out, people were complaining that it wasn't much of an "ooh bugger" power, because it took so long to cast. I didn't know if the activation had been shortened or if the "four seconds" was simply exaggeration - My Stalker is SR, see.

I hope you and Mr Frosty will let us (me) know how you get on, sans stealth. I'm always interested in alternate builds.

Does smoke flash still have a four second activation time? If so, I'm not sure I'd want to rely on it in all but the most dire situations.

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If you have three, you're cheating.

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1. Hide
2. Stealth
3. Hyper Stealth

And even with Hide+Stealth empath can still be a problem for you little stalkers, since thay can stack CM on a single target... if i ativate my hasten i can stack 22 CMs on a single target when the first starts to run out

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As far as I know, Hyper Stealth, (if you mean the temp powers) doesn't stack on stealth - I believe stealth switches off, if you put Hyper On. I have four stealth buttons, thanks to temp powers, but I can't use four at once. I just like to keep them around for when stealth gets detoggled.

Also, the reason I started playing a stalker was because I'm an empathy defender and wanted to understand them more, so I could change my defender tactics, but as has been said elsewhere, being seen and being stopped are two different things.

So long as it still says "Hidden" in the corner of my screen, you can see me all you like.

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They werent ambushes, they were "virgin" mobs that I had been watching while drinking a cup of tea. I was about to attack when the wyvern lt turned around and attacked me.

I was running Hide and none of my toggles and had not even activated an attack yet.

At first I though that maybe it was due to a bad connection (I have been rubberbanding a bit recently on Onion, and had a fwe disconnects), but there was no visual ques that I had lagged or disconed .

He was +1 lvl so I guess he could of just got lucky

DG>

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Is this the point where we shout "ZOMG! Stealth NERF!"? I've never been good at timing that sort of thing.

I haven't encountered this, but I'm a bad person to ask, as my Stalker only exists in BB and Sirens and, briefly, the shortest route between those two.

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Also, to be honest, the most efficient support weapon in my hero-killing toolbox is not stealth, it's the little white bubble most heroes seem determined to have above their heads while they talk.

Oh, you're typing are you? Build Up... AS...

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I noticed more players seem to use this 'trick', so i like to lure them once in a while. A /afk I'm Typing command and just wait till some moro... errrm villain takes the bate

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If you watch people, rather than leap in at the first appearance of the white bubble of suicide, you can usually spot the difference between chat and a lure.

Fortunately I'm a patient soul and have run into plenty of "moro" heroes.

A pair of heroes standing together with their AFK bubbles blinking on and off in turn... Looks like lunch to me.

"I was typing!"
"I know."

Were they ambushes, possibly responding to you clicking on a glowie or picking up a hostage, David?

Also, to be honest, the most efficient support weapon in my hero-killing toolbox is not stealth, it's the little white bubble most heroes seem determined to have above their heads while they talk.

Oh, you're typing are you? Build Up... AS...

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And you don't need stealth. It is nice to have, but by no means essential - they may be able to see you, but that isn't the same as being able to stop you

Blindfaith doesn't use stealth, as she doesn't a) need it for PVE, b) like the movement penalty, c) the increased endurance consumption. She still does well in the zones when she is in there.

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Nope, you don't need stealth and I'm with you on positional sense and placement being very important too, but I'm very keen on stealth. Even though my defence is high enough that, in Bloody Bay, I can usually get an AS off even if I'm seen, as I pick off individuals and often they can't hit me before it fires.

But then, these days, my build is virtually exclusively PvP, whereas yours is for more varied gameplay.

As you say; Monkeys. Nuts.

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If you have three, you're cheating.

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Funny thing is, 2 Stalkers in a duo, both with Grant Invisability, is cheating.


At least by some people's standards it is.

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I imagine these would be the same people who challenge me over broadcast.

"Come on then! One on one! But you can't use hide. Or AS."

I presume the next sentence is "and fetch my slippers!"

If you use hide, you're invisible. Hurrah!

If someone out there has focused senses or tactics from the leadership pool or pops some yellow inspirations or has clear mind applied to them by an empath, then they can see through hide. Boo!

If you have hide AND stealth, two things making you all shimmery and cool, then consequently, they're going to need two things raising their perception to see you.

There are all sorts of very complicated numbers for perception and stealth dependent on archetype, range and what kind of cheese you like, but the quick and dirty version is, if you have one glob of stealth, your target only needs one glob of perception to see you.

If you have two, they need two.

If you have three, you're cheating.

No stealth? errr, Good luck!

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His name is Dark-ness. Oh and he's behind you.

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Stalk's always behind you. <shudder>

I think Stalk-Obot is Stalk-Obot's Stalker.

This post brought to you by the word, "Stalk."

The harshest reality I see in PvP right now is people have shot themselves in the foot.

The nerfing of my stalker's damage means that what happens now is, I knock you down to 1hp and then some Shivan, (in BB), finishes you off and hello debt.

I used to carry and pop reds accordingly, having looked at your AT, but now a tray full of reds isn't going to take you from 100% health to dead, so all I do is set you up for an AI kill.

"You *******! You got me debt!"
"Actually, people kvetching about stalker damage got you debt. But I'm sorry, all the same."

From experience, I don't see how you're going to Stalk in PvP without stealth. I realise that it doesn't do as much for a stalker as it used to and that a Stalker's positional sense and use of the environment is important too, but I couldn't face PvPing without Stealth.

I have a SR stalker and love it like a big fluffy sock filled with kittens.

Nothing finer than firing AS on a placated foe and seeing "DODGED" come up as his mate tries to hit you to break the animation.

Good luck to you!

I spent about 10 minutes watching Silver Weasel, waiting for the right moment, but I normally see a target of opportunity during a long-period stalk.

I've spent a long time wearing down stormies, with long-distance impale, followed up by a bounce-through-brawl to try to get the toggle off. That's not really a stalk though, just a tactic using the stealth capability of the AT to escape, displace and repeat.

Sometimes right now, today, before i7, I know for a fact that I can be seen. A couple of empaths with clear mind kicking around and I may as well have a neon sign above my head.

Being seen does not force you to be a scrapper and it does not stop you being a stalker. It makes things harder, but that's the nature of PvP. Sometimes I can make easy kills, sometimes I can't.

Hide is not a big shiny WIN button, it's an advantage that you have to make best use of to kill heroes.

A perception++ scrapper may be able to see you, all on his own, but he can't, for example, see through buildings - it's up to us Stalkers to adapt and to learn to work angles and environmental factors to aid our killing. It is entirely possible to be completely hidden from view from a hero five feet away, behind a wall or a building and use zoom and mouse-look to watch gangs of heroes, waiting for the right moment.

I'm very, very far from the best stalker, but I like to think (hope) that I'm difficult to kill, because I play my stalker like a predator, waiting for that right moment. I watch from middle-range and wait for someone to end up separated from the herd in one way or another. If I get the feeling that someone has spotted me, then I back off, drop behind scenary and loop around to another position. This tactic works for me even in fights where I know full well that I can be seen. There will be a tactic out there that will work for you, even if you can be seen.

This isn't meant as a flame, but complaining that one hero archetype with one particular secondary in one PvP zone will be able to see Hide+Stealth Stalkers all on their lonesome is going to meet with little sympathy from heroes who were told, repeatedly, "Sorry, not our problem... Keep moving... CoH is a team game!" when they noted that one villain archetype could kill without a team.

SR Scrapper with perception++ is going to be the scissors to a Stalker's wrapping paper of invisibility. I'm looking forward to killing heroes anyway and the surprised look on their face when I do.

I was always happy to have Bil on the team in Sirens, pre-changes, so I'm scared to think what he's like now if he's more powerful.

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Just wondering if anyone can shed light on how rep works?

I was up to 98.1 on Monday and knew it would drop a little overnight. Went back on today and even after a kill or two, I checked and it was down to 94.

I heard it dropped 1 point per day but this is clearly wrong as mine must have dropped around 8 points in a 24 hour period.

I'm guessing it must drop faster, the higher it is?

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I don't think it drops faster the higher you are, as I jumped on as Mellon today, after six days off and had dropped from 400 to 391.

I don't know what the rate is, per day, but if it is a sliding scale then the difference is very small.

I'm not sure how you could lose eight points in a day unless it was a bug, (surely not!). Occasionally I kill someone, get the rep showing in the chat box, then check my rating and it hasn't gone up.

So that'll be three paragraphs of me saying I can't help you.