Lord_Cristof

yes.

Yes, placate is bugged.

Here's how the bug manifests itself:

Any secondary effects from a stalker's attacks (to-hit debuffs, damage over time, etc) will break placate. You will remain hidden even when placate breaks. This has been acknowledged by the devs as a bug.

You can see this in PVE when a target was placated but can still attack you for no explainable reason. Usually this doesn't happen because of the way mob AI works. Honestly it's not that big a problem in PVE. It's just irritating.

In PVP is where you see the big difference. Placate causes an opponent to be unable to target you. Usually in PvP you're trying to hit each other with a rapid series of attacks if you want to win. Since most stalker attacks have a secondary effect, placate is broken immediately. When placate breaks you're left with this weak sort of pseudo-hide and since your opponent can target you any attack they can land on you will immediately break your hide gained from placate.

How important is this to PvP now? Psh... not very. With all mez effects lasting about 2 seconds effectively you just have to wait a second or two after your last attack so the secondary effect wears off before you fire off placate. Placate will then take effect for 10 seconds in which the stalker can not be targeted by that opponent. (unless you attack again)

From what I understand about this, the reason this dumb bug exists is that somebody discovered an exploit by which a stalker could get the power pool taunt and placate. By taunting a target and then placating him the victim was now unable to target ANYONE. The fix for this little exploit resulted in the bug few of us really understand and most of us hate.

My personal feelings:

This bug should be fixed so that the secondary effects of attack powers don't break placate. If that dang exploit was such a problem take away taunt as a power option for stalkers. I don't know a single stalker who uses taunt anyways. I'd love to see how a skilled stalker could play in PvP with a properly functioning placate and no diminishing returns. (it'd be kinda sick, but I'd love it.) But I'm about to start ranting about how mad I am about some of the new changes so I'll leave it at that. Hope that helps anyone who is confused.

Thanks fellas, I had a feeling it was something like that.

I remember hearing something a while back about assassin strike having a chance to detoggle an opponnent in pvp. Anyone know anything about that?

You're right I suppose I was wrong to say never. It is possible if you can predict their flight path but once somebody is aware there is a stalker around trying to do that it could be pretty darn hard.

Thanks devs for the arena options to play with or without supression and diminishing returns. I like the idea of being able to choose between the two "genres" (for lack of a better term) of PvP. Now folks can fight with their high-end tweaked out toons without feeling cheated and folks with new toons or less than optimized builds can PvP without the fear of being remorselessly stomped. (for the most part) I'd really like to see an option like this implemented for the zone PvP as well.

Here's a couple more changes I'd really like to see in upcoming patches:

Mez Effects: holds, stuns, immobilize, etc really don't last long enough to be effective in PvP. This hurts Dominators and Controllers pretty badly and makes Epic holds virtually useless in PvP. I feel that Mez effects should have a PvP duration that reflects their recharge time (kinda like the damage scaling)


I don't really understand the need for the new stalker TP foe NERF since TP foe takes you out of hide anyways... unless there is a plan in the works to increase the damage of Assassin Strike... In which case it could be a way to prevent players from being killed too easily.

-assassin strike-

on to my pet peeve. Assassin strike. My post may sound controversial, but please hear me out. There are some big changes that I feel should be make to this power. I filed bug reports and mentioned them in other threads. I was mildly hopeful that they would be addressed in these PvP changes but to my disappointment they were not. Assassin Strike now does less damage than before when it should have had its damage increased. Assasin Strike is an interruptible power that requires that you are hidden, not moving, and in melee range for it to work. Sounds easy right? It's not. It is highly unlikely that a moving, flying target will be hit with Assassin Strike as long as he keeps moving and changing directions without making an easily predictable pattern. If a stalker is flying he has to wait for his momentum to come to a complete stop before assassin strike will activate otherwise it will be interrupted by his own movement. So if fly isn't part of your build you can just get a Jet pack and you'll be able to avoid AS the vast majority of the time. -- Assassin strike requires that a stalker be hidden. doing damage to the stalker cancels hide. Caltrops or any other auto-hit AOE will protect you from ever being hit with AS.--- If you were still worried about being 2-shotted by a stalker with AS know this: any knockback AOE (such as Whirlwind which is a pool power anyone can take) automatically interrupts Assassin Strike regardless of how much knockback protection the stalker has.--- Stalkers need assassin strike to be as effective as other melee classes. It's not a "nice perk". Their AT hinges on it. The fact that it can be so easily avoided is laughable. If a stalker can actually land it on a PvP opponnent (and it can miss just like any other attack) It should make a drastic change in the outcome of the fight if not end it altogether. In this new PvP there is nothing to stop a tanker or brute from running when they feel like it for more than a couple seconds. This is a problem since Assassin Stike only does about 1/4 of their health in damage when it actually hits.


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Dear Devs: Please make AS do more damage or be less situational (easy to avoid). I believe the stalker community in general would prefer more damage because of a growing sense of becoming more "scrapper-like". Thank you.
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I was ecstatic when new epic powers became available because I felt most of the old ones didn't help my AT. Please continue to add more powers. Do it to more than just the epic power-sets. I feel that more powersets should have access to powers that immobilize and/or slow movement and that these mez powers should be much more effective than they are in PvP currently as oppossed to a global movement suppression which doesn't really result in conflict resolution. Adding more powers to the power-sets could fix a wide variety of problems related to balance within the game (like evening out the disparity between hero and villain to-hit buffs) while simultaneously giving the players more variety and individuality. Everyone likes cool new stuff to play with!

Sorry folks, all that and I didn't include a link to the site. boy is my face red...

Just edited, and it's on there now.

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