Shadestorm

Last I checked Black Scorpion was too busy obsessing over his armor (which, incidentally he's too dumb to upgrade by himself) to do more than run the crab spiders. Scirroco, when not overseeing the Arachnos Mystics (AKA [censored] children of Mu) spends most of his free time braiding his hair, and possibly that of Lord Recluse.

Can't you just imagine the two of them in nighties with mineral masks giggling about-

Actually... eww. Never mind.

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Controllers could replace dominators and corruptors only if you didn't actually need to HURT anything.


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I was pretty much with you up until here. My Gravity and Illusion Controllers can contribute just as much damage as my Mind Dominator, once you factor in buffs/debuffs and Containment. As an added bonus, the Controller buffs/debuffs can help the whole group. That doesn't mean Controllers are out of balance, though. It means that Dominators need a buff. I see no reason why they have such a low base damage when they can't buff/debuff and their base controls are less than Controllers.

ps: Why do I include Containment and not Domination? Because Containment is very easy to apply consistantly. Domination is only up a comparitively small amount of time. Dominators with Domination up are very good. The rest of the time they're underpowered, in my opinion.

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Actually, that's a really good point I hadn't considered. The containment damage buff is quite good! I think the general design here seems that the intent of dominators is backloaded super-controllering, coupled with respectable damage output. Might need to adjust it. IIRC domination doesn't affect the secondary as current. If Cryptic does perceive it as an unfair imbalance with the AT as a whole, and not specific powerset combos, I'd say applying domination damage buffs to the dominator's secondary might be a start at explaining why they're different/still useful to someone with your opinion/experience. Of course, that may actually overpower them, and is why it wasn't designed that way in the first place.

This also brings up one of the only real "reliance" factors with villains: Assassination

Stalkers don't rely on holds and sleeps, as evidenced by the extremely limited ability to inflict them. I've got a single hold power (Blinding powder) that *might* hold, but is ultimately more useful as a placate/confuse effect, as that hold goes away once the target is struck. That's ninjitsu, I don't seem to remember any other hold/sleep attacks in the other sets, but I'd have to go over them again.

However, the benefit to stalkers from holds is twofold. Numbers kill stalkers. It's not the two bosses, it's the eight minions. Those eight minions are more likely to be mezzed than the bosses with the AoE mez, and the bosses are going to be the logical targets for the single mez. Either way, the stalker saves on placates, and increases damage output via criticals.

That said, I think you might be on to something about the nonutility of dominators vs. corruptors when you factor in containment, as when you add a stalker or two to the mix you've greatly increased the team damage advantage the controller brings vs. the dominator.

However, I'd like you to keep in mind the number of attack powers avaliable to the dominator. A dominator can do just as much damage to a field of free foes as a few held foes, and when you bump up the difficulty a few notches that versatility becomes apperant, as the practiced dominator has the ability to hold down half of the foes, and obliterate the other half, while the controller's containment damage is limited to those foes on which the holds actually stick.

Is it totally balanced? I think so, but that's really Cryptic's job to decide. It's a tricky thing that can't be calculated in pure DPS or any other hard numbers as it concerns flexible team dynamics. I think that's why threads like these exist, to help sort out if there's an overarching feel that something is definately broken.

Maybe I could get some more vets with lots of controller/dom experience to chime in on this?

Let's do the AS Manticore shuffle!

"Who wants to be the first to try out my new enema-*STAB*"

Get a new line. Where's stars and stripes and the walking toaster boy? And tell that redhead to give it up already. I meditate constantly. You'd need something large and physical to get into my head at this point.

Hero ATs are specialized, and do not adapt well. Villains are built upon adaptability and self reliance.

Tankers are better at tanking that brutes. Brutes are better tanks than scrappers. If you need a meat shield, you're going to pick the tanker.

Defenders on villain teams are the reason you'd NEED a defender on the villain team. Laughable defender damage means your fights are lasting long enough to necessitate a marginally better suport set than what your corrupter would have been doing. With the corruptor, you wouldn't have needed that extra 10% because the enemy would be dead already.

Scrappers are much better sustained damage dealers than stalkers, but require more support to do it efficiently. Stalkers are frontloaded, Brutes are backloaded, Scrappers are just loaded.

Controllers could replace dominators and corruptors only if you didn't actually need to HURT anything.

Blaster damage insterted into an environment without dedicated support for it could end badly. Corrupters live longer than two hits, but deal less damage.

All in all the "This will break the game" argument is shortsighted and not well thought out IMHO. IIRC the Arena now supports hero&villain teams. This might be a good reason to actually use the arena, to test some of these theories.

Actually, I tried to surrender to longbow once. They didn't stop spraying me with flamethrowers or trying to use me as depleted uranium storage.

It was about there I realized the futility of surrender. It never gets you anywhere, it's embarrassing, and you don't get any badges for it.

Running yourself into the ground and faceplanting:
It's embarassing, and it also doesn't get you anywhere... but at least there are badges for it.

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Thanks _Awry_... but a question. Does States know where the CoV page is or is he one of those anti-tech old fogeys?

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I believe that his IP is cleverly blocked from the CoV pages….

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Hmm...

Manticore: Mythical creature theme, spends enough money on a quiver of arrows to feed a third world country for a year.

Wyvern: Mythical creature theme, spends enough money on a quiver of arrows to feed a third world country for a year.

If it's this bloody obvious, and Statesman hasn't figured it out... do you honestly think he's got both the intelligence and the restraint to properly type a URL without picking up the desk and throwing it out the window?

It's pretty much the Freedom Phalanx in-joke at this point. Posi's been to the website, Brawler... well...read the comic, Psyche reads minds.

Posi: "Hey Statesman, look, it's those Wyvern guys"
Statesman: "So?"
Manticore: "Dude, shut up already"
Psyche: *mind whispers* "He totally doesn't have a clue!"
<all three giggle quietly>
Citadel: "I do not understand this human concept of humor. Has anyone seen my toothbrush?"

2 inf:

I have zero experience with SJ or SS, so I won't waste time with assumptions. We all know what happens when you spout off with no frame of reference.

I think that the best overall suggestion I've seen that's likely to both fit the vision, and address issues players have with fly is to bump travel speed enhancers down to schedule 4. Another that I really like/makes sense is that flight's base end cost should=the base end recharge. As far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) No other single toggle is capable of sapping your bar all by itself. Why is fly an exception? Now, I know that as per Statesman powers aren't adjusted around PvP. That said, PvP is where you're going to see the best of what fly has to offer. My blaster's got flight, and I couldn't imagine PvPing without it. For ranged attackers, fly allows any vector of attack to be chosen, typical ranged attackers are able to take advantage of fly/hover to attack from outside the range of most -fly powers, and in the case of a snipe, get moving pretty darn quickly. I think the reason there ARE so many powers with a -fly component is because of the utility of fly, however as it currently stands the end/speed issues could probably use a look.

There's also been a little bit of talk about looking at the end cost of teleport. My Stalker has teleport, which I took mainly for thematic reasons, but have come to love for escape ability in both PVE and PVP. I haven't invested a single slot in my teleport, just stuck an END reducer in it and called it a day. Teleport's ability to get around immobilize and slow effects validate its end cost. The only way I could see a balanced end reduction to teleport would be to remove that ability, and hence remove the only "niche" teleport has, as otherwise, compared to other travel powers it's pretty horrible. You can't chase anything with it, as it roots you (in midair) both before and after the teleport. Additionally, teleport is hands down the most difficult travel power to use, as you're limited to either a ~100 yard hop, or rooting for a few seconds on a solid surface (wall, ground, etc.) Again, I have no experience with SJ or SS, so I'm relying on reports from those that do have that experience, and I've yet to find a single person state differently. Still, for the immobilize escape and the instantaneous travel, it's well worth its pitfalls. Especially at lower levels when you don't have many options for mez resistance, or a bunch of tray room for breakfrees.

Hopefully we'll see some sort of change in the near future, and hopefully Cryptic will continue the recent tactic of buffing as a fix rather than nerfing.

Wait wait... secret identities?

So the Longbow grunts, who wear masks are all fully registered with the authorities and have little cards, even though their "super" powers consist of small arms fire.

The "secretive" legacy chain who wield magical elemental powers, lay down glowy glyph traps, and hunt evil magic users as a "second life" have never so much THOUGHT of putting on a mask... unless they're swords and hence possess zero super powers.

As time goes by I just can't help but wonder exactly how and when the forces of good got so friggin' dense.

"Kill them, Kill them all" -Mako

The Chemical Brothers - The Test *Shadestorm's Theme Song!*

Lacuna Coil - Unspoken (Studio Acoustic Version)

Gwar - We Kill Everything *RAWR!*

Busta Rhymes - The One *From one of the Blade Soundtracks*

Robert J. Kral - The End of the World *From Live Fast Die Never - Music from the TV Series Angel*

Pendulum - The Terminal

Pete Miser - Final *If you don't know Pete, you should*

T.A.T.U. - Dangerous and Moving

Tilt - Twelve [Dousk Mix]

The Prodigy - Spitfire

Interjecting on the subject of Animation:

Hi, I do modelling and animation for realtime applications for a living. Animation production as an asset is easy in theory. That is, if you just want to stick out a few quick keyframes. However, the resultant animation looks like... well it looks like something that was thrown together. The other consideration is the pipeline in which the animation is to be inserted, how that data is called, if there's a tweening setup for the bone heirarchies, etc. In the case of CoX you've got a single bone setup that runs any number of characters, and I'm assuming that QA gets to test any new animations against several different body types and costume setups to make sure there aren't any glaring visual issues.

Then you've got the "red tape" factor, essentially how many other people have their hands in the animator's creative process. In larger teams you've got a usual two step verification process that look something like:

Designer
Animation director
Animator

So once the designer in charge of the animation unit passes down the need for animation X, the animation director delineates that task to an animator or number of animators. Once this work is completed. it is submitted back to the AD, who looks it over and makes a decision as to whether or not it's fit for inclusion in to the larger pipeline. If so, it's given to the Designer in charge of the animation unit. Basically, once that motion file goes through at least two people THEN it gets to go through QA testing only AFTER the code unit has integrated the data into the pipeline. Depending on the engine setup, this can take either a few minutes, or a few days. Server-centric models like CoX usually ned up on the longer side, as you'll want a batch of updates to apply at the beginning or the end of the day while the QA test servers and client machines aren't actively being used.

So.. animation in itself isn't easy, and the general process for getting that motion data from the animator into the finished product consumes an equal or greater amount of time than it took for the animator to finish it in the first place.

This is all personal experience, and I can't be sure how Cryptic's pipeline is set up, but this process is essentially how a typical development team of 20+ handles things.

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Some more good news...

Ice Tankers and SR Scrappers have long lamented that Defense doesn't scale with level. Because mobs higher level than a player possess an inherent to hit bonus, Defense isn't as effective over levels as Resistance.

A while ago, peoople have requested something be done. Well, we've done a bunch of work and done this. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless of their rank or level. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. This change has no effect on a player who does not have any Defense.

This change is coming in I7

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Stalkers everywhere chuckle malevolently. You don't know what you've done, Hero...

(Thanks States!)

Nice guide. I rolled a Necro/Poison MM (Only L15 at the moment) out of sheer concept, and with the slow attack rate and high hitpoints of my zombies, this set feels like it meshes very well. Defense debuffs are a godsend for zombies, as they've got crap for attack speed, but the damage makes up for it. Defense is the crippling factor for zombies, as if they miss... it's quite a while before they get another whack. Poison makes a nice patch for the slow attack speed, by ensuring the chance that they'll land that attack when it comes around.

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LOL,

I don't have anything against stalkers. They stay out of my way in combat, they rarely take aggro from me and tend to kill the most annoying enemies in the spawn nice and early. OTOH, I don't try to rescue stalkers who AS a boss in the back and pick up a ton of aggro. But I play like a scrapper on speed rather than a tank. I like to kill and finish my kills.

So <3 for stalkers is cool.

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Hah! one down, only 46,000 to go!

If a stalker needs a rescue, get a new stalker. If a stalker's stealing a bunch of aggro from a brute... well, the stalker's dead anyway. Personally, I just take out the worst mezzing/status effect mobs, then pop a smoke flash to get the aggro back where it belongs, then retreat to the outer fringe of combat and whack snipers. Raider engineers, Rikti portals, Nullifiers, Specops, and all manner of things that generally annoy and complicate combat should be any team stalker's prime directive, immediately followed by LTs and Bosses.

Most bad stalkers will be dead long before they can present a huge tactical problem for the team. Good stalkers will precision strike to carve an easier path for everyone else.

Commonly followed by Dooom.

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Look! It's an ULTRA RARE!

_Castle_

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I like the "[censored]?" added in there.

EDIT: Defeated by the filter! LOL!

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[censored] you filter! It's a [censored] legitimate [censored] card I [censored] made there!

[censored]!

That's from a 12th century piece or art. The practice of boldly stamping the author's intitals on the piece was commonplace at the time due to the practice of herding cattle. You see, cattle have a nasty habit of nibbling the corners of fine art, as this produces super-milk.

Unfortunately the practice of feeding art to cattle ended once it was determined that it was the cause of the dormant bubonic plague, which was passed to rats, where it became a threat to humans.

Look! It's an ULTRA RARE!

_Castle_

Try teaming with a stalker or two. You'd be suprised at how effective we are in later levels for removing "problem" mobs before they can cause the relentless gods of SMASH a problem.

I pretty much get stuck on nullifier/Specops detail in any given longbow group due to my heavy mez protection (Kuji-In-Rin), and the ability to utterly annihilate at least one of them as soon as the battle begins (AS).

See? We DO have a team function!

Identity: Shadestorm
Real Name: Shadestorm
Threat Level: Moderate

Height: ~5'6"
Weight: ~138 lbs.
Hair: None observed. Does appear to posess bony ridges on either side of head.
Eyes: Appears to have no pupils or iris.

Entity's crystal confiscated as evidence in 2003 during raid on Oranbega by registered hero ID#68894.

Crystal under investigation by M.A.G.I. until stolen by parties unknown during Zig prison break in late 2005

M.A.G.I. Artifact findings:
This crystal appears to house a djinn-like entity that calls itself a "Shadestorm." The entity's cooperation and communcation was instrumental in this report, as the entity was both communicative and helpful in explaining the origins of both the crystal and itself. Apperantly an Archmage named "Arixus" created a series of these crystals to form, bind, and subjugate the essence of an extraplanar race of beings called the Kyaris. Once bound to one of these "Shade crystals" the essence is re-formed and creates one of these "Shadestorms." During the last years of Arixus' life, the Kyaris' warriors managed to destroy many of the crystals. However, the ingenious architecture of the crystals themselves simply funneled the trapped essence into the nearest crystal upon destruction. To the entity's knowledge his is the last crystal. Like most djinn, Shadestorm is bound to the will of whomever has posession of its control object. Though this Shadestorm appears to prefer a bladed weapon, it assures me that this is not a feature indicative of its race. Most Shadestorms prefer their own natural weapons, but this one seems to have been weakened by forces unknown. It seems genuinely willing and even enthusiastic to carry out any task which I ask of it, including providing the information given forth in this report.

Shadestorm posesses the ability to shift slightly out of synch with the physical plane, in effect providing it a very effective camoflauge, and means of transportation. It also appears to have a limited ability to shift others, an effect it relates as having used to draw its enemies away from their reinforcements. Due to its connection to its crystal, Shadestorm seems quite resiliant to mental trickery. It appears to posess limited psychic ability, using this ability to cloud the minds of its opponents, or read them to know where the opponent will strike.

It is this office's hope that whomever came into posession of this artifact does not seek to use it for malicious purposes. We deem this entity highly dangerous to the unprepared.

Reccommended defensive measures:
Remain alert at all times. In addition, any device or ability that allows increased perception of the electromagnetic or electroetheric spectrum will aide the user in spotting this entity.

Proto nullifier gun drops all toggles, saps all endurance, and -recharges all powers. Comes with 5 shots. Later in the arc you get the production version, another 5 shots, so don't be afraid to use the prototype.

Personally, I took mine to PvP and scared the bejeezus out of a few tankers. As a Nin/Nin stalker... that felt good. Real good. Later on you'll get yourself a void hunter rifle... Which works just like the NPC version against Kheldians.

I love temp powers.

Wanna hear something funny? Heroes are making an all-too similar point about arachnos troops in this post.

Coincidence? I think not. I'd wager both groups are functioning exactly as intended.

You know, I'm a stalker, and a big fan of siren's call on infinity. I never used this particular tactic, though I had the powers and knowledge to do so. It just seemed.... wrong.

As much as I hate storm controllers, there's a certain sense of "deal with it" that, as a player you just have to develop. In a PvP environment, people are going to consistantly do things that piss you off. It's the nature of the gameplay. People will accuse their opponent of "cheap" tactics, petition for changes in the forums, and generally whine their bloody heads off about one thing or another... so long as it involves someone else's supposed unfair advantage.

"Cheap" is something you have to live with, griefing shouldn't be. Griefing could best be described as exploiting an unintended emergent property of the gameplay mechanic to negatively impact the experience of another player. In layman's terms this is called cheating. You're not being clever, you're not using a tactic, you're violating the EULA.

If you've got enough common sense to figure out an exploit in the first place, I'd wager you've got enough to know that it's an exploit. I refuse to belive anyone is that stupid. What it looks like to me is a failed attempt at rationalizing the act of cheating. After all, nobody likes to be caught cheating.

I'm glad we got the word on this, and hopefully this will put an end to this particular nonsense until it's fixed.

Some stalkers give the rest of us a bad name, but we're not all griefing pieces of trash. I might be a sneaky underhanded trash talking villain, but I'm not a cheater.

Shadestorm Nin/Nin Stalker - Infinity

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It's like i've been telling people all along... Longbow's a clone army!
We must sue Miss Liberty for llegal cloning of mutants!

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Let's hope they go the way of that "other" clone army. When they do, let's splice them in some better aim.

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In a fit of true oddness, you will see Longbow operatives practicing with bow and arrow on the island they control in Nerva. It's pretty out of place looking, since they don't use those in everyday action.

Maybe they're studying Zen practice.

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I frequent that little rathole, and I've seen this oddness. Almost DIED laughing.

<Longbow goes *plink* with bow>
Wyvern on ledge above: [Paraphrased] Man, I'm sick of these losers.

Granted, the comment was meant to be derogatory toward us pesky Project Destiny kids, but the way the entire scene was set up... I was almost too tickled to stab him with my Ninja Blade. Who says archaic weapons can't be used to devastating effect against the superpowered?

Side note:
What are they guarding on that island anyway? The fountain? Longbow has a friggin' CASINO in nerva. I've knocked it over at least fifteen times at this point.

*goes to make a post about this right now*

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"Longbow, Wyvern, and the Legacy Chain are meeting to coordinate their efforts. That would be bad. Stop it."

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One of the respecs actually HAS this mission. It is the mission that forced our team into the Sharkhead SF.

Speaking of which, Crypitc, great plotline and missions in that one. I can even forgive you for the giant eyeball of stalker negating DOOM at the end. You know how many one liners I had ready to roll in my macro tray about a giant eyeball that can't see me? In stead I got another addition to my list of stalker arch enemies. Right up there with Longbow Spec-Ops and Rikti drones. Lets fix the strike force rewards so that the entire team gets them rather than just the leader, and add a badge so more people will feel compelled to take these on, as they're really well done!

After you've fixed the Strike Forces:

Give me Carnie missions, and I will be the happiest stalker in the world. There's a certain way only they scream when you kill 'em. Give me allied villain faction paper missions, and I will be the happiest magic origin stalker in the world. There's a certain satisfaction in knowing that those circle mages are self destructing for MY benefit. Give me hero groups to smack around, and I will be the happest player in the world. Luddites, Wyvern, Legacy Chain, I'm sure you've got more up your sleeve. Keep the longbow out of the paper though. I can already find a plethora of longbow missions at will.

Also, when do we get an official word on those mayhem missions? Are those paper mission, heists, contact only? What's the deal?

Hello, I'm a stalker. I enjoy PvP but I spend more time in PvE.

It seems that one shotting from stalkers in PvP is the issue here because you're much less likely to see the well built stalker than the stealthed blaster. Truth be told, there aren't any huge threads about any other AT with "one shot" capability.

I have faith in Cryptic, I made a post in the stalker forums about this, but looking at the I6-current patch notes I count roughly twice as many AT based buffs as nerf, whether result of a bug fix or planned change.

So it seems then that the problem, with stalkers at least, is less the one shotting and more the inability of the *average* player such as myself without a character that's built for PvP.

The extremes of PvP builds and their arguments look like Tactics and the stalkers taking stealth. While both serve a function in a PvE build, they're generally less useful there than in PvP.

So here's my suggestion:

Add +perception and +stealth enhancements. Allow these to be slotted to any power with that respective capability. This allows soloists on either side to effectively use these powers to best effect, at a tradeoff of defense. This means that while the advantages of tactics will still be viable, multiple stacked instances of tactics won't be nearly required, nor will stacking stealth and hide.

Make hide non-stackable. An AT built on stealth, taking the "lower grade" stealth power in order to remain on top of the game just seems silly conceptually, and is a large cause of grief. Also, other than a cursory defense buff that can be better obtained from other pool powers or secondary powers it serves little to no function in PvE. I haven't taken this power for these reasons.

Make placate require a hit check in PvP. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be fairly easy for a stalker to placate a player opponent, but it shouldn't be automatic. High accuracy, yes, automatic, no. The power doesn't currently accept accuracy enhancements, and this should remain so. This allows players with a +defense component to be equipped to deal with one of the stalker's best toys. Higher HP targets are well equipped versus the initial strike, but these targets would be less equipped to deal with the placate. This suggestion somewhat levels out the resistance to stalker toys, as currently the +defense powersets have few options at retaliation, even though they are better equipped to unintentionally avoid the initial strike.

It's not my job to design the game, but I think that the suggestions outlined here may be a step toward balancing the key issues players seem to have with stalkers in PvP without completely changing the essence of the AT.