NinjaMonkey

I read the guide a few pages in this thread but have a stupid question. Am I right in that this in no way affects the double ding that acc debuff and to-hit debuff powers get (as level increases your power loses it's effect and the critter to-hit increases)?

I can recall a graph that someone drew to display how acc debuff powers like RI and to-hit debuff powers like DN would look I6 and I7 and it seemed like the low end (0 and +1) was worse by 5% or so but as it went higher the effect was favorable to I7. A quick example would be nice too.

/edit threw in some details of acc and to-hit

One of the best explainations on a complicated topic I've seen.

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Dominators are a one-trick pony.
Domination is all they have. Without it they're inferior to everything else. Everything.

Three white-con minions? Yeah, they can kick your butt. Seriously. I wish I was joking.

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There's so little truth and so much hyperbole in this that I can't even make an argument. Can't beat em so ...

No question about it, the moon is made of cheese. Seriously. I wish I was joking.

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Tip: Don't team with MM's.

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I never ever invite MM's to my team. It might seem trite but their pets are always in the way. whether its blocking a doorway and I can't attack, or somehow Im in front of them and need to run. I just can't deal. Plus all the downtime for resummons and buffs is annoying, its detrimental to domination and fury.

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I don't think it is a very viable option to just say "don't team with MMs." For one thing, MMs are about 1/3 of the population of most servers at any given time. For another, when I am forming a team, I'm not going to turn down a VG member who I know is a good player just because his AT makes my inherent hard to use. If our inherent is structured in a way that it hinders us from teaming with the most popular AT in CoV, then there is something wrong with our inherent.

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Then get ready to address one of the best inherents in the game ... Fury. Brutes and MMs do not mix well. The only melee that stands a chance is Stalkers but even then it's a pain. For Brutes it's infinitely worse since Fury drops like a rock if they can't swing or get hit. I can't tell you how many Brutes complain about this on the forums.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. You think the problem is the inherent(s) but you're dismissing that the problem could be the MM / pets. Pets just make things a cluster for almost everyone. There are good things that go with that but there are bad as well. With pets you don't build Fury or Domination as well without but that is offset by the disposable nature of the pets and the abilities they provide.

It's a major pain to team with MMs but they are also a great asset. The problems arise when people are too selfish about their toon's performance. If the team succeeds does it really matter that my Brute hovers at 25% Fury? Maybe it stops me from KO Blow'ing a LT with 1-shot but why should I really care if the XP flows and no one dies?

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As I have noted many times, most of the people who like doms seem to prefer a solo or small-team playstyle. That's fine, but I don't think any AT should be structured so that they *have* to play solo or on small teams to be effective.

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The survey you reference appears to have changed. What might have been valid then doesn't appear to be valid now since many people are discussing how effective their Doms are on large teams. Plus the word "effective" is subjective so it's not possible to say for sure that a Dom is not effective on a team without using the phrase "IMO". But the silent part of the entire "effective" statement is that someone else is more effective which goes back to the problem of comparisons to other ATs.

If you could not hold, stun, immob, confuse or whatever a mob on a large team, and you could not do any damage, then you would be in-effective. But if you can use those powers then the debate comes from being "as effective" as someone else. This leads to comparisons with Corrs and Controllers which really could be done with ALL ATs (compare them to multiple other ATs).

Seems like focusing on contributing is more important than focusing on who contributes more.

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That was a hot topic in the Defender forums back around I4 or so. People were confused and upset that there was a lack of definition to the Defender "role". I never understood why it was important really.

IIRC some were trying to figure out if Defenders should be protectors, team multipliers, or part-time damage dealers. To me the fact that you could do either was a bonus and not a crutch. The same could be said for Doms.

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I have played defenders since I3, and I don't recall any big debate about defender roles, except for the debate about Offenders -- and that was never really much of a debate because pretty much everyone agreed that Offenders were not as valuable to a team as a Defender. Nothing against Offenders -- I had one myself -- it's just that it was seen for what it was, which was a primarily solo build. The only other Defender role debate I recall had to do with Controllers having the Defender primaries at mostly full strength, but that had to do with comparison of ATs, not defenders themselves.

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Go and ask Pilcrow if you want. We debated the topic for a long while, along with a few others. He coined the phrase "force multipliers" from that topic. I'm sorry you don't recall that debate but I really have no reason to lie. If you think I am you can ask Pilcrow. To be honest I think similar debates can be constructed from posts in the tanker forum where they thought their "role" was totally replaced by Controllers and Defenders after I5. In that case I also think a dev response on role vision wouldn't have solved anything.

Comparisons drove the debate for tankers and defenders back then and they drive it today for Doms.

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Defenders always knew what they were best at, and they have a very clear role -- team support with buffs and debuffs. The fact that someone could make a Defender with a different emphasis did not obscure what was their clear strength. Doms have no such clarity. Are doms supposed to be primarily team support? Then why do they have only 80% of controller primaries and a secondary that doesn't synergize with the primary? (Defender secondaries don't synergize with their primaries either, but defender primaries are so overwhelmingly good that they don't need any synergy.)

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Actually that's not true. Defenders are not even close to be overwhelming superior and that's the point. Have you seen the comparison of Def primary to Controller secondary? The values are 80-120% of effectiveness. That doesn't seem very clear to me.

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Are doms supposed to be damage dealers? Then why do they have damage as a secondary, weak damage, and melee powers with no way to protect themselves in melee?

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Same as defenders except for the melee.

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Are doms supposed to be some sort of blend of the two? If so, then what exactly is their role on a team?

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Which is very similar to the Defender role. Are they just defense or a mix of defense and offense? Should the defender even bother with his weak blasts or is he just a "healr"? The defender can't match the controller in team defense so why bother trying right? The defender can't match the blaster in offense so why try right?

The similarity between Defender ambiguity and Dom ambiguity seems pretty evident to me. Both aren't the "best" at anything and that leaves it open to the players to try and figure out what to do with them.

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All of the CoV ATs seem to be blends of abilities, and all of them seem to be designed to have better soloability than most CoH ATs, which were more specialized.

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I'm not so sure all CoV ATs are better at soloing. Depends on you match them up.

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That makes me think that the devs probably conceived of doms as having a mixed role. But maybe not -- after all, doms are the only CoV AT that has a damage secondary.

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And Controllers are the only AT that have no damage set yet no one has a problem with them. Shouldn't no damage be more confusing than a damage secondary? Since Controllers have no damage set shouldn't we scold them for trying to do damage? Doesn't that mean they are breaking what appears to be the clear role of their AT (control and buff/debuff). Or maybe does it mean that the definition of the set is more than just a word like buff/debuff, control, or damage?

Heck, Defenders have a damage secondary and people STILL think you're a bad "healr" if you dare to 3dmg slot your blasts.

The same questions can be asked for Doms as Defenders if you really want. Why the so called weak damage secondary? Why the primary when someone gets it almost as good or better? So if these things confuse the role of the Dom then they also confuse the role of the Defender.

It all seems to start and end with comparisons. If you choose to compare the Defender to a Blaster or Controller you will feel inadequate and have role confusion. If you choose to compare the Dom to a Controller and Corrupter you will feel inadequate and have role confusion. Neither of those feelings addresses whether or not you contribute to a team and whether or not you solo at an acceptable rate. Instead they only tell you that one AT does your primary better and another AT does your secondary better. Trying to compare a single AT two the effectiveness of two ATs doesn't make a ton of sense to me but that's what often happens.

As with the defender role debate from around I4 I don't see dev clarification help with much. If the devs say that Doms are a team friendly AT that has control and damage sets people will still counter with the same complaints about "But our holds are inferior to Controllers" or "Our blasts are inferior to Corrupters" or "But what if I don't want to use melee attacks". I just don't see a dev reponse on Dom roles solving anything since pepole will still feel the same way on what they see as an inadequacy.

But ... this is a serious derail from I7 Dom changes.

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Dominators need to be completly analyzed by the devs and they need to run the numbers and see whats wrong. Only problem i can see is, they might see plant as good enough and leave everyone else in gimpitude.

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Good point. No one really agrees what doms should be. There are lots of different playstyles -- the mostly solo scraptroller -- the team oriented toon that maxes out the primary -- the wanna-be damage dealer who slots holds for damage.

With a Brute, there is no question what the playstyle should be. Same with an MM or a Stalker. There is a little controversy with corrs, with some people thinking they should be support and others thinking they should be offense, but corrs are really able to do both pretty well.

There is none of this clarity as to the role of the dom. Perhaps it would be helpful if one of the devs would share with us what their thoughts were in designing the AT?

FivefifteenA

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excellent idea.

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That was a hot topic in the Defender forums back around I4 or so. People were confused and upset that there was a lack of definition to the Defender "role". I never understood why it was important really.

IIRC some were trying to figure out if Defenders should be protectors, team multipliers, or part-time damage dealers. To me the fact that you could do either was a bonus and not a crutch. The same could be said for Doms.

Some are confused by the melee powers available to some sets thinking you should be blapper type. Some are confused of the control primary and think you should be a controller. some are confused with the damage secondary and think you should be focused on damage.

I look at all those options and instead of seeing confusion I see options. I can pick a set with melee attacks and try to make a blapper type. I can pick a set with few melee attacks or totally ignore the melee and work on ranged. I can focus on the primary or the secondary as I choose. I can try to be ranged or melee with both primary and secondary. I can go for a control heavy primary or one that is more damage intensive.

It's funny because the flexibility is sometimes viewed as a curse. You look at the tanker forum and some will criticize a scranker build, but if that's what you want then so what? If you max out your defenses and cripple your offense as a tanker people will blast your inability to inflict damage but so what? Play it down the middle and balance both sides and people start to complain how a controller can protect the team better or that a scrapper can dish out more damage.

The danger of the tanker example is that if the devs did relay some kind of mission statement for tankers, it could lead to changes that limit the flexibility of the set. If tankers are labeled as defensive giants then I could their offense getting reduced to balance them, which would drive away people who want to dish out decent damage.

I'm certainly not saying that more communication from the devs is a bad thing or that asking for the dev vision of an AT is bad either. I am saying that it can be a "glass half-empty" view if you look at Doms (or any AT) and get frustrated with the flexibility to build toons with the same powers that play differently. Seems like the natural progression of a clearer vision for an AT is to narrow the focus and limit the flexibility, which I would hate to see.

Shrug. Just a ramble.

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Before this thread becomes justifiably locked....


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Although that's a rather extreme example. Dark Defenders have always been best against AVs, where they can pile all their debuffs onto a single target.

A Dark Defender can't provide protection that good against anything else.

I think it's also worthwhile to note that no other set can even come close to matching this sort of thing.

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Actually, the Necro/Dark MM comes awfully close. While the Dark Miasma of the MM is weaker than the Dark Miasma of the Defender (because it's a secondary for the MM), that is made up for by all the -ACC that is inherent in almost every attack of all the minions. When you have eight pets with -ACC secondary effects... it tends to stack a bit.

My D3 is able to stand toe to toe with a Giant Monster or AV because of all the debuffing, but can't kill it, for lack of attacks and END. My N/D MM can also stand toe to toe with a Giant Monster or AV, and in some cases kill it, because the pets provide ENDless, non-stop attacks in addition to all the debuffing.

If the currently planned nerf hurt only my MM and not my Defender, I wouldn't complain; but the Defender doesn't have anywhere the amount of damage and mez mitigation that the MMs' pets provide. The Defender is severely gimped WRT soloing as compared to all the other ATs.

On top of that, the Defender's inherent power is unusable soloing. OK, Ok, we get it Statesman, you don't think its fun to play a Defender unless your defending anyone but yourself.

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Actually, my Kinetic defender appeared to be the best debuffer of all my debuff sets when faced with a single target. The only exception was the female AV mentioned a while back (NightSong, Nightwing?). With all the other AV fights I was able to survive the nuke attacks against an AV or Giant Monster by debuffing like a maniac while my team dished out the damage. In fact I would steal many kills by timing a well placed snipe near the end. This was back in the perma hasten days though so I had very little downtime in my debuff attacks.

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You're not doing yourself any favors. By acting that way you almost guarantee that your viewpoint will be largely ignored, because you will be seen as an unreasonable extremist.

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As if it makes any difference. This isn't about the paying customers. It's all about Emmert's "vision", his ego, and his idea of "fun."

You can all keep sucking up. I won't.

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Still waiting for someting useful out of you beyond saying that someone is incompetent or someone else is a suck up. Unless you're telling me that insults will accomplish something useful, if so, please tell me what. I have a few guesses.

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Wow.

Way to necropost guys. You successfully drug a post up from all the way back in January.

Good work!

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Dang. I didn't notice that - I figured I just missed it. My bad, sorry. Let me delete my post.

Post deleted by NinjaMonkey

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Someone explain to me how knowing things like this breaks anything, unbalances anything, or spells any level of doom and/or trouble?

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My guess it's that old habits die hard. There was a policy where numbers were not discussed, at all. Whether or not that was the correct thing to do or not is kind of a dead horse at this point because it appears that policy is being bent to extremes now. We are getting tons more information on numbers that we used to (which was none).

So why don't we have solid formulas right this instant? I dunno. Maybe the same reason we aren't getting answer very quickly to the posts. Maybe because the people who can give you the information are all doing other stuff. I don't have a good answer.

I do know that if someone gets the job to post numbers and formulas they will instantly be hit with about 100 responses from people who have questions or disagree.

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The only way to fix it would be to exempt toHit buffs from the purple rolloff. That is the root of the entire problem.

Note, however, that the moment you do that, you are almost certainly looking at a significant nerf to the base values. They aren't going to let us floor the accuracy of +4 mobs just because we can toss 2 or 3 debuffs on them at once.

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Or just change the magnitude of the purple rolloff.

I suppose States can safely say it's not a nerf because nerf is somewhat subjective. Nerf typically means a crippling blow at least to me. But he can't argue that it's a numerical decrease in some cases. Whether or not it's significant is subjective.

But there is a good PR opportunity here. He can try to tweak the numbers so the numerical hit we take isn't that bad at the low end. The window is open for the devs to come in and say "we heard your concerns and decided to try and do something to alleviate them".

One thing to remember though, that is party why this is being done. They heard the cries from the DEF based sets and decided to do something about. You can argue that the implementation is messed up, but you can't really argue that "we the community" didn't ask for this (had the def bases sets not said anything I'm sure they would not have done anything).

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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.

Here it is.

The debuff values use an RI that has been 3-slotted for ToHit Debuffs.

The defense values are using a 40% defense, which happens to be lower than even the post-nerf 3-slotted RI number (46.87%).

Edit: Fixed the graph to properly reflect the changes.
Edit again: the change didn't seem to take for some odd reason...you'll get a 404 error for now.
Final Edit: Ok, now it's fixed. The graph is no longer so hopefully optimistic.

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Are you sure about the debuff numbers for even and +1? Seems like the numbers I saw before had a much higher gap around the ballpark of 15% where your nummbers appear to be 5%. The +2 on up differences didn't bother me that much but the lower gaps were a concern for me.

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No offense to the OP, and I'm guessing he didn't mean this literally, but this kind of shows the wrong attitude to have if you ask me. How many ATs expect to jump a group and not take a beating?

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I can see it being read like that. Of course I dont mean attacking a whole team and surviving. I mean it in the sense that I attack someone on a team, then because I am a stalker I draw the entire team aggro and get gunned down. Most other players would die too from drawing a entire team's aggro, but being a stalker (and the only consistent threat from villains) I'll draw a ton of aggro every single time.

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That's what I figured you meant (thanks for not getting mad) but you'd be surprised what others think in the other boards. For example, I've seen far too many defenders whine about how they are nothing in PvP but big fat targets and their only purpose is to boost stalker kills. Meanwhile you come here and see how Hurricane and Clear Mind are just ruining a stalker's life.

It can be hard to filter all the forum traffic if you don't have a perspective from all the different points of views.

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Seriously though, what do you guys think? Whenever Im attacking a team, I usually get beat down right away. Stalkers always get the most hero aggro. Even with placate, attacking a team that has half a brain and surviving is tough. Nerfing placate lowers my already low chance of survival.


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I didn't read everything on this post but this part of the OP jumped out at me.

No offense to the OP, and I'm guessing he didn't mean this literally, but this kind of shows the wrong attitude to have if you ask me. How many ATs expect to jump a group and not take a beating? Maybe scrappers and tankers? Maybe brutes too? That's about it. Everyone else who tries this pretty much expects a beating. Why? Low hp and low or no RES means quick kill in most cases. Plus stalkers are always annoying everyone else. So it's part emotional and part smart to concentrate fire on a stalker when you see them.

The natural counter to that argument is that as a Stalker you are required to mix it up and melee. This means you have no other choice but to jump a group in order to do your job.

To some extent this is true but only if a group stays bunched up. I suppose a really good team will do that but not always. Besides, there are ways to separate targets so you can avoid getting a group attacking you.

Maybe I'm wrong but it's hard for me to see this as doom yet. At the very least it might mean that players need to be smarter though. We shall see.

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But I posted initially more just to gripe about how useless it was to me at 45, with no way to get rid of it, when I'd have preferred to replace it with any other L1 tanker power or a pool power

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But this is the thing you are missing, Barrage is as useful to you at lvl 45 as Jab is to me at lvl 45.

At those levels we got acces to a lot of better attacks, that if sloted properly for recharge make the first attacks in the chain entirely useless for us.

The issue is not that barrage sucks, but that you have no use for it. Barrage can even still be used as a great filler for a constant attack chain at lvl 45 if you are the type that rather not slot for recharge.

Now, i think yougot the wrong campaign on your hands. Think a lot about asking for damage changes on this set, for you may regret it.

Instead, why not join the already running campaign of switching the first two powers order? The reason is exactly as you noted now, at higher levels the weakest attack in your power is rarely useful, but on the other hand, the second one is almost always useful. So, why not force us to take the one that will always be useful instead? THAT is what you should be asking for, not for them to change the numbers on the attack you think is useless.

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I think Stars hit it fairly well.

As a side note, I think anytime you try to say that recharge isn't a factor that should be considered in dps you're in trouble. Also, with CoV you need to consider what effect your changes would have to Brutes (who are very interested in recharge).

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Yes, it is untrue.
Secondary effects/debuffs work BETTER for Defenders than for Blasters. Granted, most Blaster-shared Blasts don't have a secondary effect that can be changed in value, but it's visible in Electric Blast.

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I forgot about that. You're talking about the boost in end drain that Defenders got for the /Elec blasts I assume right? I think that came in I5 or I6. To me, that kind of confuses things.

You have to wonder if the devs just like to complicate things. Wouldn't it just be easier to say give Defenders the Blaster powers at 65% across the board for both damage and secondary effects? Want to know the damage of a shared power? Easy, 65%. Want to know the secondary effect of a shared power? Easy, 65%. If they see a problem with balance AFTER doing that then it could be addressed but why make it more confusing than it needs to be?

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I agree with Mieux - -Speed/-Recharge should be defined as a debuff, not a control.


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Then that creates a problem. Like you, I'm in favor of softening control overall; adding more "soft" control and less "hard" control. This definition of control, if it was adopted by the devs, would force me to reverse my position on soft control. If movement slow is a debuff right up to just shy of immobilize, and then immobilize is suddenly considered control, then the line between debuff and control in general is being drawn in such a way as to make any attempt at implementing softer control a form of controller assassination.

How we handle slows is a leading edge indicator for me, in the same way blaster range, pool stacking, and variable criticals have been for me in the past. In this case it tells me where I should side on control modification, and right now its strongly suggesting that I'm currently on the wrong side.

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Another one late to the game but I agree it's down to the definition of a buff/debuff and control from the devs. To me, if +speed is a buff then logically -speed is a debuff. At least it seems to work well with most of the other stuff like

+dmg (buff) and -dmg (debuff) or
+acc (buff) and -acc (debuff) or
+def (buff) and -def (debuff) or
+res (buff) and -res (debuff)

If we allow -spd to be a "hold" or "control" then why would we rule out -res or -acc?

In my mind, a debuff doesn't stop a mob from doing anything, it just makes it harder. It's like the age old comparison of debuffs vs hold and which you'd rather have. If I'm punching you in the face do you want to stop me or make me hit you less often or not as hard? Stopping is control but less frequency or less impact is a debuff.

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SS underpowered? Without Rage, most certainly. With rage, and it has the best melee DPS bar none.

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And what about Stone Melee?

Additionally, I don't think the smashing damage coupled with rage is going to get any near Energy Melee's damage. Smashing damage is very resisted in the end game.

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Well that's an interesting theory but it's hard to quantify "very". You seem to want to min/max this debate with numbers but a good portion of your argument is subjective. Exactly how much is resisted in the end game? When does it start? And does that resistance overshadow the practically always on nature of something like Rage? Sems like your gut feel is no but this entire post starts off pure numbers and being objective and ends up with nothing but subjective opinion. The AE attack for SS is tronger but comes later but the heavy hitting single target for SS comes earlier but is weaker than the EM version. So which wins?

In the end I'd agree with this:

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Because, quite simply, not everyone is a min maxer. And they don't worry about such things.

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Ok guys, I've looked over everything and have narrowed down my rebuilt Brute to the following combinations: SS/Fire, SS/Invuln, SS/Stone

I have builds ready for all three, that I think will work based off the suggestions given by everyone in this thread. So which do you think would work the best minimizing downtime and maximizing damage in a solo situation?

Thanks once again!

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Minimizing downtime prior to level 20 or 22 is kind of futile if you ask me. I assume you're really picky since your OP was about how slow it was at 8.

I have ss/inv and like but for minimal downtime you might want ss/fire. Fire has a heal and end recovery tool, but the end recovery power has a long timer IIRC. Only problem with /fire is you really need Acrobatics.

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Another thing, isnt it funny how all the ppl making guides to counter stalker ganking are stalkers themselves? Is it conscience kicking in? Are they worried they know they're gonna get nerfed so need to scramble for damage control? Its the same knee-jerk reaction ppl have with cover-ups, lol.

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This just shows how immature you're being on this. I've posted a few times in support of stalkers and keeping things the way they are. I have ZERO stalkers and a ton of squishy defenders. I have been killed by stalkers quite a few times. But, as I said before, I've had them fail at AS or fail at an attempt at AS, and I've killed them many times.

Your entire faulty premise is built on incorrect fact that there is nothing you can do to prevent the attack and that it's a simple "push the button and I win" scenario. Many have told you how this is not true but your stubborness appears to be endless and you're being really close minded on the subject.

Does it occur to you that maybe some people don't agree? That some people don't find it as big as a problem as you do? That while some agree with you a good portion do not? You do get to express your opinion but you don't get to enforce it on the rest of us.

Have you played a stalker yet? You seem to think it's very easy and a no brainer but others are telling you that it isn't true. Instead of trying it for yourself you just basically call them liars. How you can honestly form an opinion without "walking a mile in their shoes" is beyond any rational thought.

You have the right to express your opinion on what it's like to be on the receiving end of a stalker attack, as do I. But you don't have the right to say what it's like on their end of the deal until you try it. Trying to talk about balance when you've only seen one side of the story is foolish and hypocritical at best.

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That was because magnitude of holds could trump the inspirations, thus making them useless.

I fail to see how seeing a Stalker before he/she even gets a chance to line you up somehow doesn't prevent you from being AS'd.

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Stack enough Disciplines and the magnitudes of the holds could not trump them.

Stack enough Insights and the stregnth of the stealth cannot trump them.

I was asking how the situations were DIFFERENT.

They're not, so why shouldn't we get a way to RESPOND to a stealth snipe the way we can now RESPOND to a status?

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Just because it happened to work that way before doesn't mean it has to again. It is possible that the solution found in the end for that issue isn't appropriate, or desired, for this supposed issue. I suppose it comes down to "Just because we did it that way in the past doesn't mean we need to do it that way every time in the future".

I fail to see how a comparison can be drawn betwen a character who is typically easy to see and a character whose major ability is stealth or remaining hidden. There is no parallel between a controller coming up and holding you and a stalker sneaking up for an AS.

And, as pointed out before, there are ways to spot the stalker now, where before you could not stop the controller. There are powers you can use to see the stalker, which eliminates his advantage. There are aura powers that can reveal him. There was no way to stop a hold or break out prior to the inspirations.

I'm still not sure why this is seen as an auto win situation. I've had my defenders live through several AS or attempted AS.

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Patience does not = skill.

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So then being intelligent isn't a skill either? Or that means that if I'm impatient and just attack the nearest target when he's at full health I'm still being skillful?

No matter what you think AS is not a given one shot. You should try it and see how often it fails (and how often you die when it does fail) just to see what it's like. Otherwise it's sour grapes really.

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PVP requires no skill now if all a person has to do is make sure their victim has no perception powers/defense and one shot them. This becomes even easier when your victim is preoccupied with another opponent.

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That requires no skill? So then why is it that I've lived thru AS before with multiple defenders. It's not a lock for a kill. If it were a no brainer it would work 100% of the time no matter what the stalker did. That isn't the case.

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I dont mind getting 2 shotted. 2 shotted means I have a reasonable chance to heal, escape, retailiate. And I dont wanna be forced to play a more hearty, boring AT just bc there is a few ATs out there than have this 1 shotting advantage. Thats why I refuse to play blasters/stalkers. Hitting the "I win button" is pathetic. It requires no thought.

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If you force the stalker into a 2 shot then "you win" each time. The stalker can't live much longer after a failed AS. So we should doom the stalker because you don't like to play them? A bit selfish don't you think?

Oh, and you don't have to play a tanker or scrapper to defeat a stalker but you have to change your tactics. Are you against adapting to the situation or something? Why can't you pick up a perception boosting power, or team with someone who has it, or stay close to a teammate who can help? In other words .. adapt?

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Are we talking about PvP here or did you just try and solo Requiem at level 10?

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Actually it doesn't matter. Barring the situation of tackling stuff that is way beyond your level, getting one-shotted by anything is equivalent to the game randomly deciding it is time for you to die. Even getting 95% swatted isn't fun, since usually that other 5% has already been queued by another critter before you know what happened. And not being afforded an opportunity at all to respond isn't challenging in the sense that an adventure game is fun to play, it is challenging in the sense that draws people to Roulette or slot-machines.

So it really doesn't matter if what one-swatted you was a stalker, AV, nasty boss, or even a lucky minion. It sucks regardless of how it happens. Relying on random insta-death (from the dieing player's perspective) isn't challenging, it is a design crutch. It might have been fun back in the SNES days but this isn't Super Mario.

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Random? How is it random when someone successfully manages to sneak up on you, que the attack, land it, and manage to kill you? It didn't just happen the guy did a lot of work to accomplish the task.

Are you saying there is zero defense against this AS? If so you're wrong. The stalkers have to be careful to not pick a target that can see them or fight back or has a buddy ready to smash them into a puddle. If the stalker kills you but then dies because of your teammate it's an even score. To gain the edge the stalker has to be somewhat patient and intelligent in what he does.

Oh, and if it's not fun then why are people playing stalkers? Seems like a good portion of people enjoy this style of play. It's not fun for you but they are having fun. Are you saying that it has to please everyone at all times? I doubt that's ever going to happen.

Lastly, please explain to me how a stalker can do anything if the AS fails to kill someone. My experience is that a stalker is either dead or running for his life when the AS fails to get the job done. He has very little else he can do. You want him to stand there and just take a beating? Even my defenders can kill them in a fair fight, or at least capture him so a teammate can do it. Yea, that sounds like fun for the stalkers - reveal yourself to the enemy and give him a chance to hold or mezz you so you can then be killed.

The balance for stalkers is that they really can't live much beyond the AS and when revealed are easy pickings. If you want to take away the AS then you need to change everything else because I don't see how they could do anything without AS being a seriously dangerous weapon.