Siolfir

Other than as an IO set bonus mule - which is why I have Absolute Amazement 5-slotted, or Kinetic Combat 4-slotted, in a power that doesn't even sit on my tray (Boxing).

Which is why I wouldn't say "almost everyone" - you can get utility out of them, but you have to look for it.

SI is a toggle - and a moderately expensive one, too. Group Invisibility is the click.

I did ignore the 0 end/sec cost of Hide, but I feel that ignoring it is justified - I know that I'd love for my Stalkers to not be able to be knocked out of Hidden status by silly things like attacking or being hit (and yes, I am aware that hidden status is seperate from suppressing stealth - but the two are tied together by the same events in-game).

superior invis, were it available to something with a better stealth cap, is far and away the best invis in the game.

Just look at the numbers:

Superior Invisibility: 200' PvE (does not suppress while attacking/being attacked), 1000' PvP.

Hide: 150' PvE, 500' PvP.

The last time I had a math class, 200 > 150, and 1000 > 500.

Unsuppressed Hide is the best AoE defense toggle in the game, though, with a base defense of 37.5%.

I notice you say "used to". So you don't do that anymore?

To the OP: like many things with IO slotting, the "best" solution is subject to change and highly dependent on the rest of your build. Both of my /nin Stalkers (PvE build designs) have Touch of Death for the melee defense - picking up ranged elsewhere - since I'm far more likely to have a good chance at a followup attack. But if you are going to want to PvP with it having the extra procs will help you out on actually finishing the target instead of just annoying them (and possibly making them jumpy).

It's probably worthwhile to note that any math included will probably only use the primary on an identical attack chain, and mention a higher critical percentage.

Because that math - which is "real math" - shows that using the same attack chain, on a team to boost the critical rate, a Stalker will outdamage a Scrapper. It's not hard, you just figure out the average critical rate, compare the base AT modifiers, and use that to figure a multiple of the base damage of the chain.

Giving the Scrapper a 10% critical rate on the base of 1.125 damage, you get a 1.2375 "final" AT multiplier; for a Stalker they have a base of 10% plus 3% per teammate within 30' and a base of 1.0. So, with 5 teammates (ie, team of 6), they end up with a 25% critical rate and a 1.25 "final" multiplier. 1.25 * (x damage) > 1.2375 * (x damage).

One of the things that approach doesn't account for is Against All Odds boosting the effectiveness of the Scrapper's attacks by a variable amount depending on enemy placement, nor does it account for procs in the attack chain, the guaranteed criticals from hidden status, any damage auras, throwing in Assassin's Strike for extra damage, or the fact that Scrappers aren't the single-target damage kings either (iirc that's an expensive Fire/Fire/Mace Dom build, but I didn't work the numbers out on that). But in "general speak" - comparing ATs to ATs and not builds to builds - Scrappers do more damage than Dominators, and not every Scrapper has a damage aura or Shield secondary. I personally still wouldn't say that Stalkers are single-target damage kings, but as a whole it can be shown that they do better as a whole against single targets than Scrappers on large teams. That just talks about average AT performance, though, and not situational exceptions (of which there are many).

Of course, if you want to account for everything in the game, you're welcome to do so. But you haven't shown any math - real or not - to indicate your position.

Electric Armor Brutes can hit 90% to everything except for toxic and psi while in Power Surge... and do so with just SOs. Yes, Power Surge is skippable (and I don't have it on any of my Electric Armor characters) but if you know you can handle the crash - and don't mind having one in the first place - you can cap a lot of damage types. Personally, I just run Tough and pop lucks or Demonic if I'm in enough trouble that I'd need it.

And with good slotting and Tough a Stone Armor Brute - in Granite - can get around 88% S/L... one set bonus away from capping smashing (I don't recall any lethal resistance set bonuses, but iirc kinetic crash has sm resistance).

So yeah, getting 80% resistance isn't all that tricky. I think Dark Armor can get there to psi through stacking set bonuses, although why you'd bother I have no idea.

<3 that one.

Except that they didn't have it better, because of the speedruns of Katie prior to merits - unless you're going to tell me that an average completion time of 8-15 mins is longer than 20-30.

I'd also say that the "minimal effort" 45 minute Tarikoss (which by its merit reward has a median completion time of 39 minutes, so that's still too slow) is also doing their best to skip as much as possible - sure, it takes about as much time as an ITF (which can also be finished in 20 mins if you skip all but the objectives), but it rewards half the merits of an ITF.

The rewards are simply unbalanced.

If they're doing their job properly, Fury won't ever be an issue - they'll get a spike with each spawn from the alpha before any debuffs land and after that their own attacks, even on a set as slow as EM, will keep it where it is. And the Brute having a defense-boosting secondary is all well and good, except for this from the original post. /electric is not one of those secondaries.

I'll second /Cold for another reason - Energize also provides +regen which can almost be made perma (well, it can be made perma with a lot of expense, but that generally requires too many build sacrifices), which works really well with Frostworks providing +hp. But realistically, any Brute/Corr combination should be effective with reasonably competent players behind the keyboard.

/signed


Also, Stalker Thunderstrike isn't "broken". Uninterruptible Assassin's Shock damage with a built-in 50% chance for stun is Working As Intended™.

This, pretty much.

Sure, if it always went off it'd be nicer for the Stalker, but having it set up this way adds an element of choice - in effect, increasing the number of tactical options. It's not much depth, but it's more than just "me am Brute, me wade into fight and mash buttons"*. It's also why I like Ninjitsu - the extra little things like Blinding Powder and the AI-wrecking Caltrops provide far more survivability than someone looking at the numbers for them in a vacuum would think about.









* - not all Brutes play that way, or that some Stalkers can't... but Brutes can certainly get away with it more often

It was missing the "and complain about it on the forums" part, though. That's a key ingredient, without which much of the entertainment value is lost.

Doms don't have damage as a primary powerset, but Castle explained during his revamp that they were supposed to have both control and damage as a primary abilities... which is why the damage modifier is 0.95 ranged and 1.05 melee. So it's still a primary focus.

And as for all of the redside ATs having some form of damage mitigation - all of the blueside ones do as well. Even a Fire/Fire Blaster has mitigation directly from their available powers (through slows, "avoid", and an immobilize), and every AT has inspirations, invention sets, and power pools available. Whether or not people use that mitigation, or feel that it is always sufficient, is up to them.

Stalker Willpower is nearly as clicky as Regen - Reconstruction being what it is. Yes, WP doesn't have Dull Pain to worry about, but IH can keep your hp topped off fairly well while it's up, and Stalker WP doesn't get RttC to do the same thing.

From my experience, Regen does moderately well if you pay any attention, but there are times where you have a small window to heal and having some defense or resistance would be really nice about then. My personal preference for PvE (ooo, alliteration) would be Ninjitsu, but I've got a 50 WP and a 41 Regen, and I've been reasonably happy at the performance of all of them.

Gravity is a myth - everything sucks.

As to the point of fixing it immediately once it becomes virulent, that would be fine if the fix were at least checked. But the buffbot allies issue has been prevalent for over a year - it's been widespread for a looooooong time already. It seems that the major issue is that "nothing happens until broadcast in Atlas Park on Freedom latches onto something". I was told about the jellybeans the day of the patch for the MM pet exploit*, and to be honest, after a quarter of a run the team I was on stopped since we found that we could get faster xp on general-case farms (that, having no helpers, still work just fine) or even old-fashioned non-AE farms that have a chance to get purple IO drops.

So even then, the question that comes to mind is: does a patch that doesn't work to fix a problem that's been widespread for over a year really need to go live to fix a "meh" farm when there's a better solution in the works that will be out in a month?





* - I use "exploit" rarely, as anyone who follows my posts will know. If it doesn't involve using a bug, it's not one. Taking advantage of buffing allies isn't an exploit, any more than teaming with Defenders, Controllers, or Corruptors is. Abuse, sure - exploit, not so much. I'll freely call that one an exploit, though - it still is, to some degree: you still get more pets than you should have, but they're the right level now.

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