Lantzer

[*]Ice/Rad
Ice/Rad is the set for what I like to call "Close-support controllers." Damage is low to non-existant if the set is slotted up for control/debuff, but can make a team _safe_ from within the fight. The set works by combining the two AoE control toggles (Arctic Air and Choking Cloud) with the Rad debuff toggles and the marvelous AoE control granted by Ice slick and rapid-fire Ice Blocks. The set is end-heavy, but this can be covered by Hasten+Accelerated Metabolism+Stamina. The point is to enter the fight behind the tank (or jack frost) and within seconds have the entire spawn held, greatly slowed, confused, crawling around aimlessly in terror, flopping around like a fish, and debuffed to their Acc, Dam, Res, Def, Rech, and Regen.

The two biggest weaknesses for this set is a lack of major damage ability, and AoE Mez from enemies. I'd suggest working toward the psionic ancillary pool for the mez protection. Luckily, with AM, the mezzes don't last long. The damage can be taken care of by toting some blasters around and encouraging them to cut loose and have fun in safety. As this set works best up in melee, if things go south, you'll likely be faceplanting quickly.

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Anyway, I was running around collecting badges and reading plaques today when I came across this one in the Hollows:

"This building once housed the lab of Dr. Calvin Stewart, who pioneered Eastgate Bay's Seaview project. Dr. Stewart has been forced to abandon the lab, and communication with the Seaview project has been erratic. Very little is known by the public about the scientific activities in Eastgate Bay."

I think it kind of points to there being Coralax in IP.

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Why IP? Eastgate bay is _east_ of the hollows.

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Simple: use the already-present "aggro" mechanics instead of a supplementary and overriding mechanic. If Tankers need to grab aggro, let them do it the sensible way: by being a threat. If this is not possible, it's a problem with the AT design.


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Um, so this would correspond, using the given aggro mechanics, to the tank doing enough damage to pull aggro from a blaster. Which would mean he'd have to do _more_ damage than a blaster.

At which point, why play a blaster?

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I'm so tired of hearing the prase "kill to death ratio". This has NO bearing on anything, because any K ratio is relative to not only to your AT and build, but also to your skill and the number of opponents in the zone, their builds, and their skills.


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This is only true on an individual basis - with a large enough statistical sampling over time, it is very meaningful, because skill and numbers can be averaged/normalized out. It is faulty reasoning to assume that an AT dominates PvP due to the skills of its players. To be honest, those ATs perceived as more powerful tend to attract the poor players as they need the extra crutches to survive. Yet those ATs continue to dominate PvP - so there is obviously an imbalance.

Like I said in my other post, PvP is a zero-sum game. If Dominators as a whole have a K ratio of 1:5, then they are likely mechanically disadvantaged, and need to be adjusted if they are to provide any role other than 'victim'. Because folks want to feel effective in PvP. If they are incapable, they don't tend to have fun. If they don't have fun, they don't play that character in PvP - thereby reducing the variety and fun in PvP.

Likewise, if Stalkers have an average K ratio of 5:1, then they are likely mechanically advantaged, and need to be adjusted to allow other folks to have fun too. Else after side switching occurs, all you will see in RV will be 3, maybe 4 hero/villian builds, and neither side will look much different. This does not lend to the vibrant diversity in characters that we see in the PvE game.

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So without knowing baselines, saying your 5:1 in only 1 hour means stalkers = Easy PvP Mode really doesnt hold water.

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Well, here's one baseline: for a perfectly balanced system, each AT would have close to a 1:1 ratio, assuming that there is a rough equality of player skill in each AT. This means that the more capable an AT is of getting kills, the more risk it should be at. This would apply whether teamed or solo.

Now this is obviously not the case at the moment. Defenders and dominators at the moment are disadvantaged on both sides - both being easy targets and being unable to kill opponents quickly. Tanks and blasters are arguably balanced with one able to kill quickly but still be fragile, and the other much harder to kill, but also unlikely to actually take down an opponent. Stalkers and scrappers are at the top end - being fast killers and very difficult to take down.

PvP is a zero-sum game. The game as a whole is going to be 1:1. the farther individual ATs get from that ratio, the more out of balance it is. It becomes less a contest of individual skill and more a contest of mechanical advantage. The K ratio is nice as a measure because it is independent of the numbers of each AT played. If one AT (Dominators, for example) is played less, then it will get fewer kills. But it should also get fewer deaths, because it is not a large fraction of available targets. If it is dying more than it is killing, on average, that means the reward/risk is out of whack for that AT, because

In the state of highly mobile PvP that we currently have, 'Support' ATs are difficult to protect. If your AT has an average K ratio much less than 1:1, then your AT fulfills the role of 'victim'. If you personally have a a ratio that is better, you have every reason to think you are impressive. If your AT has an average K ratio much greater than 1:1, then your AT is one of the priviledged ones. As such, your personal ratio must be very good indeed to allow any sort of bragging rights, because you have a built-in advantage. Sort of like playing soccer against folks on crutches.

So 5:1 is probably too high for balance, Solomon, assuming the poster you replied to is not a tremendous player with superb skills - and he didn't seem to think so. As far as 'Easy Mode' goes, any AT with a ratio greater than 1:1 is on 'Easy Mode', as it is unlikely that any one AT would draw more skilled players to it than the others. Does that help you?

Addendum: After thinking - depending on how the Devs cook up their stats, the ideal zone average K ratio may be _less_ than 1:1 - if you include deaths by NPC. The above discussion assumes only players kill other players. So a high average K ratio could be even more out of whack.

Kahoru:

Correct, snipe has only the single range check. All but 1 snipe has a 2nd LoS check. The one that does not check again on firing is the psychic snipe - one of the advantages of the set.

Assasin Strike at the moment is a fairly standard snipe attack, but with melee range, no interrupt reduction, and a rather large critical effect.

Thorizdin:

Your description of the effects of my idea are essentially correct. The power would be one that a player could start anytime he wanted, for the usual endurance, etc. But it only actually goes off at the end of the interupt if the target is in range. Workable? Mechanically - probably - without access to the game engine, I couldn't tell you. They were able to support 2 LoS checks in Snipes... Playable? I actually like the idea. An Assasin strike is an attack that is carefully placed, with the opponent in the right place at the right time. It is not a normal melee attack because it is interruptible.

There exists a faction of players who think it is wrong that an interruptible melee attack should be effective even when the target buggered off during the interrupt period. They put forward the idea that the AS should have two range checks.

I disagree with them. I think that change would cripple AS in many circumstances - even when fighting foes who have no clue the Stalker is there and aren't taking measures to defend themselves. I don't _want_ stalker's best attack to be crippled - and I don't even play one.

But I sympathise with their plight a bit, as currently you have 2 options during the interrupt period. Move out of LoS, or hit the stalker. Stalkers have a high defense, especially against AoEs. A lot of character's panic buttons would be AoEs - don't have to target anyone. Every tanker attack is an AoE. Needless to say, many people think that trying to hit a hidden stalker during his interupt period is not much of an option. So that leaves running.

Many fights, for a variety of reasons, occur in the open - no way to get out of LoS in 4 seconds or less. They can open the distance pretty well, though. Getting hit anyway at range is not seen as a problem with snipes, because a snipe is by nature long ranged, does less damage, and snipers do not have the defense to avoid hits like a stalker does. Folks tend to charge a sniper. (Like the old saying... Run from a knife, charge a gun). By the way, I recognize that some defenders _do_ have adaquate defense to avoid getting their snipes interrupted by melee characters - but I don't hear many people fearing defender snipes.

These folks feel a logical disconnect with a melee attack having the same advantage, however. They feel that if they get away from the knife, they should get away from the huge crit. I can sort of see their point. They see the interrupt period as prep time for a devastating attack - not the attack itself. They lose their grounds for argument if the range check is at the end of the interrupt, however.

What is the difference between a player jumping over a fence 1 yard away to avoid an AS and a player Superspeeding 100 yards away to avoid an AS? In the mind of these folks - nothing. They see both as reasonable counters to the attack. Unfortunately, in the current mechanics, one is 100% effective, and the other is 100% ineffective.

_That_ is why they argue, and that is what I'm interested in fixing - because I hate inconsistency. The mechanics for the Assassin strike are consistent with a ranged attack, not a melee attack. I think, however, the proposed solution by these folks is too drastic. I instead favor a solution that still rewards a stalker for good stalking skills, but doesn't arbitrarily penalize those who feel the best defense against an interuptible melee attack is to not be there when the attack goes off.

Currently it is possible to do a sort of reverse-joust with AS on a moving target. This would still be possible, if more difficult. It would still be possible to AS those who move predictably or not at all.

Although I do not have quite the same approach to PvP as you do, Thorizdin, I do respect that you tend to put thought into your posts. I'd appreciate your comments, as I know I do not have any actual experience playing a stalker. I only have seen the situations described above from a third-party witness perspective. When I get AS'd its usually from total suprise while doing a lengthy animation, as my characters can either see the stalkers well, or not at all, depending on which character I'm playing, so my personal experiences are not particularly applicable.

I like well thought out discussions, without the selfish, the childish, the shrill, and the borderline insane. My goal is to help try to make PvP fun for all. I have way too many alts to be attached to any one AT or tactic, and have no particular loyalty any one approach. I want PvP to be interactive - a way for players to demonstrate their skill (or their lack thereof) and their tenacity (or their lack thereof). Stalkers are neat - and they walk a knife-edge between making the game for fun, and making the game less fun. Many other ATs walk a different, but similiar line. The difference is that stalkers right now are the ones eliciting complaints, because they are the ones that make their opponents feel the most helpless when encountered the first time.

After some thought, I disagree that the AS should have a range check both at the beginning and end of its animation. I think it should have just one. At the end.

2 checks would, I think, unfairly penalize Stalkers and make it too difficult to get an AS off at all. A single check at the beginning does not reward targets for having quick reflexes and getting the heck out of there. So, the solution is to put the check at the end...

You remove the ability for a stalker to take someone out who noticed the incoming AS and ran 100 yards away, but retain the ability for the stalker to hit moving targets _if_ he can predict his target's movements. And if He can predict his opponent's position 4 secs in the future, I see nothing wrong with granting him a successful AS. That is a mark of good stalking.

Win Win solution.

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[Does the phrase "satiric hyperbole" mean anything to you?
He was exagerating (not by much) the ease of which opponents can avoid being AS'd to prove a point.

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Yes. It's possible I missed his point. My sarcasm detectors do not work as well without tone of voice. That and reading forums tends to dull your senses to the shrill, idiotic, and borderline insane. I took him as being serious. Basically a quote of "Duh, Keep moving, morons".

It is however, a bit disingenuous to pretend that constant movement aimed at continually breaking line of sight to possible unseen stalkers who could be anywhere is particularly conducive to actually _doing_ anythng in zone when one wishes to fire off ones own powers and interact with other PCs/NPCs...

...with the disclaimer of "assuming you are _not_ a cookie-cutter superjumping whirlwind build with only a handful of attacks meant for PvP burst damage."

Personally, I don't get bothered that much by stalkers, because I am usually doing missions. The zone geometry is such that a superspeeder is out of LOS fairly easily if he is just concerned with getting from point A to Point B.

I just thought that the tone and oversimplification expressed by the OP was not particularly useful to those who have trouble with stalkers.

To be honest, I'm hoping that stalker fixes will wait until after the Hero-Villian crossover's are up and running. I think that Bloody Bay and SC could generate useful data with Stalker Heros in play.

Since when? Unless I'm mistaken, AS is like any other attack - once the attack is begun, the target could be superspeeding away and will still get hit...

...as long as the target is in LOS. I have to be honest and add the conditional modifier.

There is enough total BS on the topic of stalkers - let's not add any, folks. A more accurate version of your statement would be that never staying in an area long enough for anyone to queue an attack on you is a good defense against AS. This is true.

It is also not particularly useful advice.

Nifty.

I know I've always envied those Tsoo with Katana/Kinetics. That combo looks like fun.

In CoV they came up with a Blast/Support in the corruptor, and some melee/control with the Dominator, but no Melee/Support.

I'd love a melee Defender secondary....