Siolfir

It's been in since issue 12.

With EM, the extra criticals don't help as much, though, because EM has a reduced damage critical with Total Focus, and the only "critical" ET has does no extra damage but it doesn't take your hit points.

Given the purely single-target focus in your primary, you should kill any problems before they ever get a chance to become a problem - and if there aren't any problem mobs than any bosses shouldn't last longer than the time it takes for AoEs to take out the lieutenants. If you grabbed any AoEs in your epic/patron pool you can use them to help out, but if you wanted a lot of AoE damage EM isn't a good powerset, no matter which AT you have it on.

Even accounting for the animation times of both powers with the "Arcanatime" associated with them, Placate + Assassin's Strike is still higher DPA than anything in Electric Melee (it's around 1.43 damage scale/second of activation... which is better than Gloom or Incinerate). The only power that Stalkers get that offers higher DPA is Energy Transfer. Better DPA = better DPS.

If you don't get interrupted, which people were saying was a big if but oddly enough only happened to me twice (both against Black Scorpion) during an entire STF full of AV fights including not being interrupted by Ice Mistral dropping a Blizzard on top of my ElM/Nin, Placate + Assassin's Strike will almost always improve your DPS. I have no idea where this idea that it's bad came from, unless people just assume that they're never going to get a critical after they Placate. Even on a resistance set, hidden status offers soft-capped level AoE defense all on its own with a SO in the base slot, and if you're on a team... guess what? A Placated AV isn't attacking you.

Now, a Scrapper will still probably end up doing more damage while solo due to having a higher base damage, higher buff modifiers, and access to a secondary that offers a persistent damage bonus that gets them a LOT of extra +damage that Stalkers don't have access to... but if enough teammates are nearby a Stalker can pull ahead on single target.

I usually skip RI and LR, and just put out EF, hit the "next target" keybind, and start blasting. If things are dying that fast, they obviously didn't need the other toggles anyway.

As for Stalkers... I got off Assassin's Shock on Ice Mistral last night through her Blizzard - the only mob that gave me trouble was Black Scorpion with his AoEs due to Rage pushing his +to-hit up - but that's a soft-capped ElM/Nin. I can imagine that my EM/WP would have a bit more trouble. But generally, I don't bother with AS on anything smaller than an EB on teams - there's little point since it'd be overkill anyway.

Speaking of EM and overkill... nothing quite like losing health to hit that corpse that your teammates destroyed while you're locked in the animation time for Energy Transfer.

I would say Containment is just as villainous as Scourge is, if not more villainous. Containment is making sure they're helpless before you start really hurting them, so that they don't get to fight back. Scourge is putting someone out of their misery after they're already hurt.

You could also argue that Vigilance is more villainous, but that's due to how it can affect your playstyle. There have been many times on my Defenders that I've told people to get hurt more so I had more endurance!

You can't placate EBs (because it's mag 4). You can placate AVs - PToD don't help them and they only have Boss level protections otherwise.

I agree that the respec team is much funnier than Aeon's cutscene. I read it while I'm waiting to be teleported, or else while I'm waiting for Assemble the Team to animate if I'm the one doing the teleporting.

I don't need to fight them, it amuses me to let the CoT do that.

I don't know, then - there were plenty of defense buffs and debuffs, as well as recharge and +damage on the ITF with the Scrapper (I was running a Plant/Kin with Maneuvers and Tactics).

What Stratoman said. Shields that offer resistance are flagged in-game to ignore outside buffs, including PB and PBU. It's due to how damage and damage resistance are tied together under the hood in the game; if it was affected by any outside buffs, like Power Boost and Power Build Up, it would be affected by all of them, even ones that wouldn't make sense like Assault or Fulcrum Shift. When Willpower was on test, there was a bug where damage buffs were affecting the resistance received in High Pain Tolerance because that flag was missed - it was most notable with Brutes due to Fury, and many Brutes were getting higher resistance to all from HPT than slotted Mind Over Body offered to S/L.

Similarly, Thermal and Cold get a greater effect from Heat Exhaustion and Benumb if they use their -resistance powers first, since -damage is resisted a mob's damage resistance (even for AVs - they don't have any special resistance to -damage, or -resistance). Dropping the resistance first means that you get a greater effect from the damage debuff.

The runner didn't maximize their position, they never should have been on a rooftop to begin with! >.>

True, and I should have checked the exact modifier - I was tired and not paying attention to the exact modifier, and assumed both used Melee Ones. Either way, I still end up using Sprint to make jumps that I otherwise couldn't, especially at low levels to make the jump from one level to another when your base jump height isn't quite enough to make it there. At the same levels, Hurdle didn't allow me to make the jump but offered a great deal more horizontal speed while jumping, which is why I made the assumption.

So there is still a toggle you get for free to help you jump higher, plus Combat Jumping which I almost always take for the immobilize protection, low endurance cost, and LotG mule slot.

Sprint provides more of a vertical jumping boost than Hurdle does (0.1 JumpHeight vs 0.06, specifically).

So yes, you do have a free power to activate to jump higher.

As far as "more worth it", there isn't one. Nothing else gets the extra critical damage to make it far and away better, and often Placate is either break-even or worse for many of the attacks you'd want to use.

But if you're just wanting something else that's worthwhile, Midnight's Grasp and Eagle Claw work. Eagle Claw after a Placate is damage scale 1.301/sec, which is higher than Storm Kick's scale 1.25/sec; outside of AS I think that's the largest improvement of any power Stalkers have.

Adding onto the Taunt part, Brutes also get a mini-Gauntlet effect; that is, all of their attacks apply a taunt to the target hit. It's not just a difference between the actual taunt powers in the primaries.

Other than that, it's pretty much been covered already: Scrappers are less dependent on mission pacing and will generally do as much or more damage*, Brutes have higher resistance caps and hit points. The higher resistance cap is meaningful for more than just Fiery Aura, also: Electric Armor caps Energy resistance, which is a bit more common than Fire damage.




* - if there are and long-term sustainable damage buffs, the Scrapper will likely be ahead; the Fury changes dropped average Brute damage overall but made it easier to sustain at a lower level.

It was a widely-reported bug when ElM was ported to Stalkers that I never saw anyone post as being "fixed" that the -recovery effect was breaking Placate. It was specific to that secondary effect only, although as you said, DoT secondary effects break it due to the extra tick of damage.

I haven't played my ElM Stalker in a couple of months now, and it may have been fixed by now - if so, I never saw it in the patch notes. But I have had mobs attack me a couple of seconds after being Placated on my ElM/Nin that I could stand right next to on other primaries (the particular comparisons I'm thinking of are my DM/Nin, EM/WP, and MA/Regen Stalkers). And they aren't special mobs, either - things like Freaks and Council that don't have resistance to Placate.

I agree with the highlighted bits above (and have said as much in other threads in this forum within the past few months, where the exact same questions have been asked). DM may not have the absolute highest numbers, but having Siphon Life keep your hp topped off during your attack chain means you spend less time doing other things... like animating other heals or coming back from the hospital. As for being able to get AS off, most AVs don't resist Placate and so if it's just one hard target - and you're not ElM, which breaks Placate when -recovery is on the target - you just need to not move and not hit Placate while they're already animating an attack that hits you.

The only thing I'd comment on is not using the Arcanatime numbers for DPA values, which actually puts Placate and Assassin's Strike in second place. Storm Kick is third, then - the short animations get hit harder due to a larger percentage of their adjusted animation being dead time.

Yes, I'd say that Batman is a heroic Stalker - MA/Nin, with the alternate animations that use punches. He certainly behaves like one, taking time and striking when and where it will hurt the most. You don't like the word "kill". Okay, replace it with the word "defeat", "arrest", or whatever you like.

Of course, you could also make the argument - and it has been made on these forums in threads that pop up about it - that Batman would be MA/WP with lots of temp powers.

*shrug* Ninjitsu implies training as a ninja - not the use of gadgets while dodging; there is a distinct connotation as "spy" and "assassin" in the term. If you want someone who is good at dodging and uses a lot of gadgets, then take SR with weapon mastery and pick up some temp powers.

There's also the whole "Tankers were there before Brutes ever existed" counterpoint... and I stated before powerset proliferation ever came about that I'd rather see side-switching and keeping some powersets unique to some ATs rather than copying powersets to everyone; it just serves to homogenize things - which is the reason I wanted something other than a damage buff for Defenders. But I'm also willing to admit that there's a bit of contrariness to it as well, due to the blind eye towards the balance issues that Stalkers have compared to the far more popular melee ATs.

What is the concept for a Ninjitsu Scrapper? "I want to play a sneaky assassin-type who kills through stealth and skill. I just don't want to play it on the AT whose entire schtick is a sneaky assassin-type who kills through stealth and skill, because I don't like that concept." Thus the use of the term "whine" in my first post.

If you want it for concept, play a Ninjitsu Stalker - it's not like you're forced redside with one anymore. If you don't like how Stalker mechanics work, then you don't like your own concept and you really just want a SR Scrapper with a self-heal and caltrops. You can also play a Stalker like a Scrapper if the issues are playstyle - nothing forces you into Assassin's Strike after all - but then you have to deal with lower hit points, lower base damage, a lower hit point cap, generally less AoE, and lower melee (ie, self) damage buff modifers.


I tried that already - big long thread, ended when Castle posted that they like Stalkers where they are now and that any issues are strictly with how stealth works in the game... despite all of the posts in the thread to the contrary.

So call it sour grapes if you want - I'll admit, a large chunk of it is - but Brutes doing more damage than Scrappers with more hit points led to a Brute nerf (even if you call the Fury changes a buff, which is debatable, the damage cap for Brutes dropped so that they cannot outdamage Scrappers when both are capped) that I felt wasn't needed. When I try to get Stalkers buffed - not Scrappers nerfed - to simply have the same AT damage modifier using the exact same justification, since the higher critical rate would allow for more single-target damage despite lacking in AoE, the reply is that "they're fine where they are". The developer reaction didn't seem to remain consistent in reasoning, likely due to the low popularity of the AT.

So, Ninjitsu is "fine where it is". Maybe if enough Scrappers play Stalkers and complain about not doing as much damage while being squishier, then things will no longer be "fine". Likely, they'll stop playing Stalkers and say "I want Ninjitsu Scrappers", though.