Siolfir

The proposal seems to be to leave this suppression in place, and remove it from the 150' PvE Stealth radius (and, potentially far more controversially, the 500' PvP Stealth radius).

Given that the hidden status is separate from the stealth, the objections due to "the benefits that Hide provides" so far in the thread aren't really valid reasons. The concerns about about allowing Stalkers far more control over their aggro generation - similar to that enjoyed by Illusion Controllers running Superior Invisibility - are valid but purely opinion as to whether or not it's overpowered; after all, Controllers can already do this (although their pets can often pull extra aggro). No other AT that has unsuppressed stealth has more than 35', so they can still get accidental aggro from overlapping spawns, although they are far more unlikely to do so than anyone without it; with the proposed change a Stalker would only ever get that accidental aggro from AoEs (including Demoralize).

Well, barring the beginner's luck aspect that you see as a lowbie, which disappears as you level up to 20.

Nitpick - accounting for the arcanatime on the attacks, you end up with the following animation times and DPA in damage scale (actual damage in parentheses):

Base damage, no criticals accounted for:
Energy Transfer: scale 4.56, 2.904 sec, 1.57 (87.32) DPA
Total Focus: scale 3.56, 3.432 sec, 1.037 (57.68) DPA
Bone Smasher: scale 1.64, 1.716 sec, 0.956 (53.15) DPA
Energy Punch: scale 1, 1.056 sec, 0.947 (52.66) DPA
Barrage: scale 1.32, 1.584 sec, 0.833 (46.34) DPA
Assassin's Strike: scale 2.5, 3.168 sec, 0.789 (43.88) DPA

Chain Induction: scale 1.32, 1.188 sec, 1.111 (61.79) DPA
Lightning Rod: scale 2.4, 2.772 sec, 0.866 (48.15) DPA
Jacob's Ladder: scale 1.5, 1.848 sec, 0.812 (45.14) DPA
Charged Brawl: scale 0.84, 1.056 sec, 0.795 (44.24) DPA
Assassin's Shock: scale 2.5, 3.168 sec, 0.789 (43.88) DPA
Havoc Punch: scale 1.32, 1.716 sec, 0.769 (42.78) DPA
Thunder Strike: scale 1.96, 3.432 sec, 0.571 (31.76) DPA

The issue with Total Focus is that after you start accounting for criticals, Bone Smasher and Energy Punch get close (and pass it on teams) for DPA due to the reduced crit.

To add in criticals, you can simply multiply the above numbers by 1 + (critical rate) for all but ET - which has no critical - or TF, where you multiply by 1 + (critical rate) * (1 / 3.56). At a 13% critical rate, BS is 1.08028 DPA, and TF is ~1.07487... so even in a duo the reduced critical causes the list above to shift.

It's been looked at recently - resulting in a higher critical chance after it lands for a couple of seconds on Scrappers (so it doesn't hit harder, but the following attack probably will) and a higher base damage for Stalkers.

The DPA for the Stalker version isn't bad - while it's still "the worst" of the regular attacks that people are likely to take (which is to say, it's only better than Assassin's Blow and Thunder Kick) it's a lot better than either of those, and has the same DPA as Focus, from Claws.

As for Hasten... well, you need to figure out what it's overall recharge is in order to determine the uptime of the effect, which you can use to get the average recharge bonus. Its base recharge is 450 seconds, but there's 120 seconds of that which is being affected by its own buff.

With only Hasten affecting its own recharge, you have a recharge while it is active of 450 / 1.7 = 264.71 seconds; 120 seconds into that, you're 45% of the way through that recharge - that means that you're also 45% of the way through the higher recharge when it drops, meaning you have 55% of the base recharge of 450 seconds left to go (247.5 seconds), for a total recharge of 367.5. That gives you around a 32% uptime, with no recharge slotted, and the average amount of recharge would be around 23%.

With 87.5% global recharge and a single level 50 recharge IO in Hasten (42.4), the numbers change to (450 / ( 1 + .7 + .424 + .875 ) =) 150.05; the 120 second duration is ~80% of that, meaning that you only have 20% of the remaining duration to go. The recharge without Hasten is 450 / (1 + .424 + .875), or 195.74, 20% of that is 39.15 seconds for a final recharge of 159.15 seconds, uptime of 75%, and average recharge of 52.78.

If the 87.5% global recharge you were talking about before was including the effect of Hasten, then you end up with:
Recharge while Hasten is active: 195.74 (61.3% of the time)
Recharge while Hasten not active: 281.43 (38.7% of the time)
Final recharge: 229.02 seconds, 52.4% uptime, average recharge buff of 36.7%.


Edit: I didn't bother with the cast time, which is why my final numbers differ from what Kosmos posted; there were already a lot of rounding issues so I just didn't care about the difference - it's not like you were aiming for permaHasten.

It still has the same AoE size, animation time, recharge, endurance cost, and general mechanics (autohit, 15' ally-targeting PBAoE that pulses once every 4 seconds). Those currently cannot be adjusted based on environment (PvE map vs PvP map), but the specific effects that the power does when it triggers can be (this is how the damages are separated - it's just another effect with a flag to only work in a certain circumstance, much like criticals / containment / scourge).

It's also certainly not the only power that applies different effects, either - look at any mez protection power.

You can self-cap damage on a single enemy with a Defender (+300%), you just have to stack it (+150%), slot Blizzard for damage (+100%), and stack Siphon Power (+50%).

A Corruptor needs 2 enemies to reliably self-cap for the duration of Blizzard (each Fulcrum is +80% at that point), but can self-cap with one enemy for a click-and-go power by using Aim.

And an Ice/Kin Corruptor's Blizzard does the same base damage while sitting at the same damage cap, plus it can Scourge, so it will almost assuredly do more damage.

So the statement is just plain false regardless of what Blasters can do to beat it - and it was shown earlier in the thread that they can (with Arcanaville showing a situation a few posts up that gets you really close).

If you're going solely for AV-killing, then DM or MA would be better than either (MA has higher damage while ignoring resistances, DM has a heal in its attack chain while still doing comparable damage of a less-resisted type). DM also has a cone in Shadow Maul if you don't want an entirely single-target build like EM or MA would give you.

KM does a touch less single-target damage than EM, but generally has faster animations, can stack a little -dam to help your secondary with mitigation, and Burst at least provides some AoE for the rest of the fights you'll run into in PvE - and while it's still "bugged" with a 100% critical rate from hide, it's a nice way to thin out a herd. It's a better all-around set with a similar damage split, and EM's only strength is of mild use at best on an AT where every primary already gets high single-target burst.

KM (and Burst).

It looks like this:


Yes, that's a double critical on AS - I took the screenshot a while ago for someone who didn't believe that it could happen (before it became common knowledge); essentially it's just "You land a critical strike..." in the combat log and you normally wouldn't see both in a row, nor does it tell you what the chance to hit the critical was.

Tso Tsumi?

Actually, it's Brutes, assuming they're on the team.

They have less mitigation than Tankers, do more damage, and since they also have a taunt component in their attacks, they pull aggro off of the Tankers.


Learn to read yourself - while you're at it, pay attention to what you write. It was quoted in the post you replied to. I highlighted the relevant part, so that no matter how lazy you are when replying you'd have to try to miss it.

Stalker SR gets a little more AoE defense than the other flavors, but loses 1/3 of the scaling resistance because of the missing passive - I wouldn't say it doesn't sacrifice anything, but it's definitely minor.

As for min/maxing it... well, you can do that with anything, depending on your budget and what you're planning on doing. It won't be the absolute best when compared to other powersets or ATs, but you can get it to a high performance level - and if you like the concept and enjoy the character, that should be plenty.

I don't remember who I stole it from, but I can't claim it as my idea. It was mentioned in an old "replace Conserve Power!" thread, and it stuck with me once I finally played a Warshade.

But yeah, having the same level of defense and a click "90% resistance to all" with no crash that can be made perma with reasonable recharge would certainly fill the Psi/Toxic holes and provide protection from cascade failure.

It just needs to get the i18 updates - I think that everything that's changed since the Dominator changes is out of date, but that's really not a lot so it's still a good source for most things. Without the change to Eagle Claw, your statement was correct - previously it was scale 2.28 damage (and still is, for Scrappers).

But really, I think it was just that prior to the changes to DM (MG used to have a reduced critical as well) there was an arbitrary limit of scale 4.56 for any attack except for AS (which is scale 7 on a critical); that no longer seems to be the case and so I'm not sure why even that amount is considered "too much" for Concentrated Strike.

I'm guessing you mean it'd only be a 50% chance, like most AoEs? What I was suggesting was to give it a "full crit" - currently it isn't, and there really isn't a good reason that I can think of as to why not. If it's because it's only a chance for a critical, then Headsplitter also "lags behind": it's a 50% critical as well.



Well, you can edit the database and cause all sorts of fun things to show up in Mid's. One of my most common edits is getting rid of the defense in Hide that suppresses, followed by the critical line in the patron attacks that causes them to show as doing twice what they should be.

I used probably because it was the most likely case, but not a certainty.

Hm... true. Now that you mention it, I remember a few people stacking Fortunes from various teams I was on, but never bothered with it myself. I just like not having the prompt pop up more than once every 20 mins (although I personally preferred no prompt and just auto-accept).

Either way, it's WAI.

Actually, it crits for the same amount as Energy Transfer (scale 4.56), for more end with a longer animation.

Stalker Eagle Claw had its damage scale increased with the other MA buffs in i18, and hits much harder (5.84) than a Total Focus critical. Midnight Grasp (5.52) and Headsplitter (5.2) also go over that mark. One Thousand Cuts' critical damage is reduced (it should do scale 4.7) to not exceed what appeared to be an old, dev-defined limit of 4.56, but with the other powers now breaking that it should probably be adjusted to provide the full damage.

None of the other Stalker attacks do more than scale 2.28 damage base, so would just match in any case.


And yeah, I knew that showing the average damage including crits was the default in Mid's - that's why I said it.