Siolfir

This - it's a pseudo-fix to the constant prompts, while still giving you the option to decline. Now you only get constant prompts if you decline all of them. It also makes it harder to waste on someone just because the cards didn't flash around them before you tried to use it, so you can put it on someone who doesn't have it already.

Mid's is probably adding in the chance for critical for your average damage; it's not really wrong to say that it does more damage due to that, but you certainly can't say "it does more damage and gets a critical" (admittedly, this is only inferred from the post since the critical is brought up separately) since the critical is the only reason that it does more damage over time.

It also may not do more damage over time if you factor in the extra damage from using BU more often, but that's hard to quantify since it's highly variable based on timing and playstyle; that's the sort of thing you'd need a program like HeroStats to keep track of rather than a simple calculation.

For what it's worth, I'd like to see the flat 20% BU/PS insta-recharge added to all flavors of Concentrated Strike, and the reduced critical that Total Focus has provided to Stalkers and Scrappers at their normal critical rates - it's a nice in-set gimmick but doesn't really represent a "critical hit" well.

Eclipse at level 35!










* - while this would definately help the set, it also stands practically no chance of happening as it would quickly be one of the best sets, if not the best set, available

Without going through all of the patch notes, I'll assume that the patch note is simply wrong and you didn't miss another change that may have updated it from the beta.

Currently, in-game, Psionic Dart has a 3 second recharge, 4.37 endurance cost, and deals 44.38 damage at level 50.

Scale 1 damage is 55.61 for a 1.0 damage modifier; apply 0.95 (dominator ranged) and you get 52.8295; divide 44.38 by 52.8295 and you get 0.84.

An incorrect patch note doesn't change that it should be doing scale 0.84 damage for that endurance cost and recharge.

Minor nitpick: Total Focus does the exact same base damage, of the same types, as Concentrated Strike - the 30% quoted critical is close enough (it's scale 1 of 3.56 for roughly 28.09%) that I'm only commenting on it so someone doesn't point out that I didn't correct it while I was being nitpicky enough to mention that the two powers do the same damage instead of TF doing more.

AVs don't have any special resistance to -damage; that is to say, all mobs (including AVs) resist -damage by their resistance to that particular damage type.

So if you were fighting an AV with 20% Smashing and Lethal resistance but no other resistances, and were applying a 5% damage debuff per hit, the AV would have -4% per debuff on their Smashing and Lethal attacks, but the Energy/Negative/Fire/Cold attacks would be -5% (assuming KM, which doesn't offer -dam on Psi or Toxic).

That's the link I was using... I just tried another copy (from Infinity), so we'll see.

One question for the people who are able to get it to work: do you have under 12 characters on Test, so that it's just using the original 12 slots? I'm at around 15 characters with 5 open, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it (similar to when the store is unavailable, how you can't create new characters outside of the original 12 slots on a server).


Edit: and in the time it took to patch, the Stalker copied. Time to change my signature again...

Damage comparison with MA and EM, and another post for DM.

Essentially, that's what they did with Dominators - when their melee damage modifier was changed, most of the AoEs were lowered in damage scalar value while the endurance cost and recharge were increased. Only one was buffed, and iirc one was left alone.

I can only assume that the people that complained were talking about how much more valuable AoE damage is than single-target: for comparison, the old Energy Transfer (which was nerfed for having DPA that's too high - scale 4.56 in a 1 sec animation - it was more than double the next highest DPA melee attack) can be surpassed by Dark Obliteration with 6 targets (scale 0.9 in a 1 sec animation * 6 targets), which isn't all that hard to arrange. Currently, hitting 3 targets with Dark Obliteration will provide more overall DPA than any single-target attack.

The simplest math for it is to ignore the guaranteed critical from hide and assume an identical attack chain with identical damage slotting and buffs.

Then you set the damage scale to 1 (since it won't change for either AT), and apply crit rate and AT mods. Since Stalkers have a "1.0" modifier (meaning 55.61 damage for a scale 1 attack at level 50) and the crit rate is multiplicative, a 3% increase in the crit rate simply adds 0.03 to the final number.

1.125 (scrapper AT mod) * 1.1 (scrapper crit rate, Lt+) = 1.2375
1.125 * 1.075 (nominal rate used when balancing against brutes*) = 1.209375
1.125 * 1.05 (minion crit rate) = 1.18125

1.0 (stalker AT mod) * 1.1 (stalker crit rate, 0 teammates) = 1.1
1.0 * 1.13 (1 teammate) = 1.13
...
1.0 * 1.19 (3 teammates) = 1.19
...
1.0 * 1.25 (5 teammates) = 1.25

So, 5 teammates to pass Scrappers over time; 4 teammates puts them at 1.22, which is above the 7.5% nominal rate.

Yes, this is a vast simplification - it ignores the guaranteed criticals and makes assumptions about attack chains that may not be true (see: Claws, Dual Blades - Follow Up/Blinding Feint don't even exist for the Stalker version; Dark Melee w/Soul Drain vs BU; using Assassin's Strike from hidden status). It also doesn't include the use of damage auras or Against All Odds (which Stalkers don't get), Scrappers having a higher +dam modifier in their version of BU providing them a higher overall damage buff over the course of a mission, and a whole host of other issues that slant things even farther towards Scrappers doing more damage.

At best, I'd call the simplification a break-even in favor of Stalkers - it ignores too many things that help Scrappers to call it better for them.


* - Castle quoted that crit rate in GR beta when he mentioned the desired Fury level for Brutes while tweaking the decay rate, but since it was in beta the post is inaccessible.

Which, considering the duration of mezzes in PvP, is only marginally more useful than the proverbial submarine screen door. If you just so happen to be in melee range (and not hidden) for the typically less than 2 seconds the target is mezzed, 20% of the time you might get a critical! In the meantime, you lose the PvE 10% base out of hide.


Except that Stalker EM doesn't have the same values except for the crits - ever look at the stun percentages? Stalkers have a lower chance to stun on Energy Punch (10% vs 30%) than the other three ATs that have the power; a lower chance to stun with Bone Smasher (30% vs 60%) than the other four ATs that have it; and less chance to stun on Energy Transfer (50% vs 60%) than either Brutes or Tankers.

The reason I say "Stalker EM" for proliferation to Scrappers is due to the stun chances as well as the reduced criticals. Or, to put it another way, if Scrappers get the higher stun chances that Tankers and Brutes have, Stalkers should receive them at the same time (effectively making it "Stalker EM" at that point in any case).

There's also really no reason to not proliferate it: with the buffs to MA, it currently does better single target damage than EM, and Dragon's Tail is a better AoE than Whirling Hands; Cobra Strike also gives you a better chance to stun than any of the attacks in an EM Stalker's "best DPS" chain, although stacking it is more problematic.

As someone who used the free transfers to rename characters, it does check before you log into the game, and the green "Rename Character" button is highlighted instead of the option of buying a rename token. You don't have to log on to rename.

I don't see where disabling the ability to log on with an active rename token would cause a problem for the player (the UI programmer may want to strangle someone, but that depends on how it's currently written), and it would prevent situations like the OP.

They're glory hounds that were just hoping to get in the screenshot. "See, look at me! I do more than bubble!"

I think Flambeaux hacked the AI.

The double critical happens after Placate only, but happens at the normal critical rate due to a glitch in when the game determines that you're hidden or not (so both criticals have a chance of firing when they're specifically written not to). It's that way on all Stalker attacks that can critical.

Damage scale 1.0 is 55.61 damage for a Stalker, so to get the damage you just multiply by that number.

Also, the numbers you quoted don't include the time used by the server before you can activate another power, so aren't really relevant. Charged Brawl is nowhere close to twice the DPA of AS, because from the time you activate it until when the game allows you to activate another power, you have 1.056 seconds - not 0.83. The extra time is what's used before the server checks again to see if the power is done activating, plus another check after it notices that you're done activating before it lets you activate another one (there's always at least 0.132 seconds of dead time).

As an example, for Electric Melee:

A 3 second AS has a DPA outside of hide of .789 DS/sec.

Some single-target primary set Stalker powers that have a lower DPA (BS not included because I'm lazy and haven't added it yet):

• Swipe (0.720)
• Power Slice (0.732)
• Nimble Slash (0.707)
• Vengeful Slice (0.621)
• Havoc Punch (0.769)
• Focused Burst (0.731)
• Divine Avalanche (0.53)
• Impale (0.773)
• Lunge (0.714)
• Barbed Swipe (0.356 -> truly a garbage power here)

It actually is the worst DPA single-target attack in 2 sets - Energy Melee and Martial Arts; note that in Kinetic Melee the AS is shorter than the standard 3 seconds and so ends up better off than Quick Strike as well as Focused Burst.

My Elec/Nin Stalker uses Assassin's Shock as an attack chain filler against single targets, whether Placate is recharged or not, simply because it's better than Mu Bolts (which I had), Havoc Punch (which I skipped), or Thunder Strike (which is horrible when used as a single-target attack). And while she's softcapped, she wasn't for most of her leveling career, and it still worked out fairly well.

TL;DR version: AS does not hurt your DPS.

A 3-second "standard" AS from hidden status by itself is higher DPA (2.21 DS/sec) than Blaze (2.102)*. Placate + AS - assuming that you're not interrupted, but adding both cast times together and figuring the DPA of both as a whole - has better DPA (1.433) than any Stalker power that's not Energy Transfer (1.57). Using it isn't a DPS hit unless you're knocked out of it, which doesn't really happen all that often on defense-based sets.

If you're getting hit all the time, then yes - trying to use it will hurt your DPS since it's wasted time in your chain. That's true for Placate and anything, though - very few powers gain in DPA when you combine their critical with Placate's cast time, and there's the chance that you'll get hit during Placate's animation and knocked right back out of hidden status before the next power even goes off. Also, the extra chance to critical from having your teammates nearby will also affect the double critical chance... so that's a wash.

* - the 3.67 second version that NB/BS get is 1.829 DS/sec, which is higher than Bitter Ice Blast (1.727)

TP Arrow doesn't deal that much damage... it has unresistable damage (and knockback). It doesn't matter if you're at the resistance cap, you'll take the same damage. And if you take a look at the link, you'll see that it's not autohit, but does have high accuracy.



Edit: Synapse does have an autohit attack, though. It causes a few problems on the LRSF if he's not kept locked down by someone.

When I said "silly levels of mitigation", what I meant was "very high level of mitigation, often far more than is required". I assumed it would have been construed as such when I had previously commented on them being "probably the most useful powers to keep yourself alive", but apparently not. Pretty much every time I've used the phrase it was a positive. I've also used "ridiculous" in place of silly.