Siolfir
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Posts
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Quote:Hide will give you 150' of PvE stealth, once you level to the point where you're no longer capped at less than that (level 15 iirc). At 150' of stealth, you're invisible to any mob in the game that doesn't completely ignore stealth altogether (Rikti Drones and Knives of Artemis are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head). Snipers, with the highest aggro range/perception in the game, have 149' of perception - you can stand right next to one and they'll never see you coming until you hit them.Originally Posted by Not_Epsilon
Hide will make u invis to all the enemies in the game, with the exception of rikti drones and snipers i beleive.
Compare Stalkers in PvE to Scrappers, except with less survivability.
The stacking helps in PvP, where you can reach the stealth cap with Hide, Stealth, and a Stealth IO, meaning most ATs (VEATs being the exception) can only see you within 10'. Just be careful of those autohit powers that cancel stealth.
And yes, Stalkers translate moderately well to Scrappers, but with the opposite view on aggro management: a Scrapper will get one thing's attention and keep it occupied, while a Stalker can tell one thing, "Hey, look over there! A shiny!" and then stab them in the back when they turn to attack a teammate/pet. The damage is roughly even with the higher critical rate, and they're just as survivable if you think about how you're playing and don't just stand there and spam attacks. Placate is part of this, but so is the burst of Assassin's Strike - being able to decide exactly which mob isn't going to get a chance to attack helps - and the demoralize debuff it adds if something survives the hit: a 7.5% unresistable to-hit debuff is very nice for a defense set. But they have fewer hit points and a much lower hp cap, so in a "stand in a crowd and do nothing" scale, they're less survivable. -
"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."
- Robert Frost
Go ahead and throw in Scorching Hot (41 Fire/Fire/Flame Blaster) for the morning run. I'm not sure what I'll be doing that evening, so I'll just set my alarm and get up a bit early. -
Best DPA available for EM Stalkers - not counting criticals, but adjusting for the delay due to server ticks - is Energy Transfer (DS 1.57/sec), then Total Focus (DS 1.037/sec), then Bone Smasher (0.956/sec), Energy Punch (0.947/sec), Barrage (0.833/sec), Assassin's Strike (0.789/sec), and lolStun (who cares?/sec). The absolute best DPA single-target Patron attack is Dark Blast (0.842/sec - AoEs are variable due to number of targets hit but can be higher).
So without criticals, your best chain would be Energy Transfer, Bone Smasher, Total Focus, Bone Smasher, repeat. For the chain you need 176% recharge in Bone Smasher, 191% in Energy Transfer, and 216% in Total Focus. Less than that and you sub in Energy Punch as filler, which isn't that far off from Bone Smasher but both are a bit less than either ET or TF at a solo critical rate (see below).
Accounting for criticals, using a standard critical percentage of 10% and ignoring the criticals from Hidden status (so just a double damage crit for Assassin's Strike) but accounting for the 0% critical of Energy Transfer and 28% critical of Total Focus, you end up with the same order, but a slight fluctuation in how close the powers are: Energy Transfer (1.57/sec), Total Focus (1.066/sec), Bone Smasher (1.052/sec), Energy Punch (1.042/sec), Barrage (0.916/sec), Assassin's Strike (0.868/sec), and Stun trails off in the distance far enough I'm still not going to bother to calculate it. The "from-hidden" critical for Assassin's Strike pushes it up to 2.210/sec, so it's still the go-to attack from Hidden status or right after a Placate.
At the highest critical percentage (31%, or 7 teammates within 30' of you), you end up with a different order due to the reduced critical on Total Focus (note that Barrage never gets to be a better DPA attack than Total Focus, although it closes the gap):
Energy Transfer: 1.57
Bone Smasher: 1.252
Energy Punch: 1.241
Total Focus: 1.127
Barrage: 1.091
Assassin's Strike: 1.034
Note that even 2 teammates within 30' of you makes Energy Punch a better DPA attack than Total Focus due to the reduced critical. With a 16% critical rate, this is the order:
Energy Transfer: 1.57
Bone Smasher: 1.109
Energy Punch: 1.099
Total Focus: 1.083
So really, aim for recharge, throw in Bone Smasher and Energy Punch more often on larger teams, and use Energy Transfer as it recharges - you can get Energy Transfer -> Energy Punch -> Bone Smasher -> Energy Punch more easily than the ET->BS->TF->BS chain and it's better on a team anyway. -
Hasten on auto; the mez protection only gets on auto if the build doesn't have Hasten yet.
Instead I put the mez protection in a convenient and easily noticed spot on the tray (usually Alt-3 or Alt-4), so it's not going off in the middle of attack chains when all it would do is stack. I started doing that on my Ninjitsu Stalkers after it went off one too many times between Build Up and Assassin's Strike (I normally shove powers set on auto out of a visible tray, so didn't see that it was back), limiting the number of attacks I could get in the Build Up window and usually leaving me with a mob running off with a sliver of health that would've died otherwise. Changing to Hasten and manually clicking on the mez power worked well, so I just adopted it for everyone. -
Quote:Brutes and Tankers have a higher regen cap than most of the other ATs, but yes a single Heal IO (or SO) will cap out their regeneration. Their cap is 2500%, Rest is 1900% added to base 100%, so you need a little over 26% heal enhancement for both Brutes and Tankers. Scrappers and Stalkers have a higher cap and can't hit it with just one slot in Rest, but all of the other ATs don't even get the full use of Rest as their cap is 1900%.Originally Posted by Lakanna
I think a single heal IO maxes out regen in rest for everyone but stalkers an scrappers (they might need 2).
Multi-slotting rest for +regen really isn't worthwhile.
And to the earlier post, while you can switch builds and never train to be forced to pick up High Pain Tolerance for Willpower, you don't get Rest until level 2. Without having Rest available it will go slower, even factoring in that you lose the first 20% of your hit points worth of damage.
As for specific mobs to use, I generally find a +3 Freak Stunner or Juicer if I'm on someone without +hp. If you're in melee with them, they'll just do Charged Brawl, which got me a little over a quarter million damage per hour at level 24 on my DM/SR. If you have someone that had to take a +hp power, you'll want to find something that hits harder - I tend to use Freak Slammers then but their DPS is lower in exchange for a higher burst. -
Quote:Coercive Persuasion (Confusion) has 5% Ranged defense as the last set bonus. I try to take advantage on my Ninjitsu Stalkers, since the Contagious Confusion proc works so well in Blinding Powder anyway.Originally Posted by Chaos_Creator
Only one purple set gives any sort of defense. I believe it is confuse or sleep.
I don't see how that helps a Brute much, but at least I added to my post count while pretending to address something mentioned in the thread.
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Quote:I'm just going to echo this, and add in that you really don't need 50-55 defense with /Nin unless you're going to be fighting mobs with defense debuffs, and even those have to hit first. My DM/Nin gets by just fine in the upper 40s even in Cimerora; when things start hitting I use the heal and toss down a patch of Caltrops, which messes the AI up enough to give the debuff time to wear off.Originally Posted by Not_Epsilon
AE centeric toons tend to be high AoE ceneteric builds, if im right then spines and ElM would be good primaries.
With high spawns of bosses and the such, a high defernse secondary would most likely work best, /Ninj if you have the money to put it at around 50-55 defense positional with suppressed hide.
Spines/Ninj or ElM/nin sound the best, but flexibility in the primary is prolly acceptable.
More input in "what" role you mean to fulfill in an AE centeric stalker would prolly help
But yes, high AoE damage if you're going to be farming. Electric Melee, Spines, even Dual Blades will all be good choices for a primary, and you're definately going to want a defense-based secondary. With that many bosses attacking, even at the cap a Stalker's hit points won't be enough for a resistance-based set.
As for a team role... in the worst case they should just notice that they aren't having a great deal of trouble. Ideally, people are thinking "Holy ****! Where'd that (mob/spawn) go?!" as things are simply vaporized - admittedly that's much less likely to happen on an AE boss farm than on a Strike Force, but I've gotten similar comments a couple of times playing missions with a normal distribution of enemies. -
Lightning Rod (the tier 9 Electric Melee teleport/attack) does not drop hidden status.
Why not, since it is an attack, you ask? Because by the mechanics behind the game it's not an attack. You teleport to a location, and then immediately summon a pet called "Lightning Rod", which has a PBAoE autopower that deals damage (the same pet mechanism is how Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Ignite, Blizzard, Caltrops, and various other powers work). This means that you're not attacking, since you're summoning a pet.
It also has no chance to critical whatsoever - but because it doesn't drop hidden status, this means you can usually follow it up with either a Thunder Strike or Assassin's Shock critical on one of the targets you just teleported to, and have a fairly good chance of getting the Assassin's Shock off uninterrupted due to the knockdown in LR.
I'll have to check the video I posted to WeGame of my Elec/Nin Stalker to see if I ever lead with LR during it - probably not, since someone specifically requested to see the animation for Assassin's Shock and so I primarily recorded only it. If so I'll tack on a link.
Here is a link of her clearing out the last room in a Malta mission; LR is used while hidden at roughly the one-minute mark, and the hidden status is clearly displayed before, during, and after until I attack again. -
Quote:Eh.... it cycles every 2 seconds, at -6% each for 21 seconds, if something stays in long enough it'd be -60% recovery to mobs in melee range only if you let it stack.Originally Posted by Shannon_EU
[/LIST]Definitely can't see that happening. Think about it.
I'd probably still do a 30% chance for -100% recovery for 5 seconds for a less consistent but stronger debuff when it fires, but the way that's listed you'd have a similar situation to what you have now, only it would work better against higher level mobs as well; there'd be a small tick of recovery, and the mob would use an attack before the rest of the endurance is sapped away by the -3% end. -
Quote:Same here, including the global channels: in addition to Inf Badge Seeker I also recommend Infinity Badges and Infinity Hamidon, and dUmb usually has something going on.Originally Posted by Eran_
I don't usually have issues with teams when I pop on Red-Side. But I have the benefit of being in Inf Badges, dUmb global, and a few others.
But you're right that broadcast and the team search feature won't get a lot of attention - I tend to ignore broadcast most of the time - especially if I'm on a team running missions since I won't be able to see it unless I'm travelling to or from a mission - and all of my characters are hiding from searches to limit the amount of spam emails I get.
But I also don't have a problem if I have to solo something, and frequently just log on with the intent to clear out an old arc, get a kill badge for an accolade, or something that I don't really intend on inflicting on other people ("hey, let's kill a bunch of greys so I can get merits!" doesn't seem like a good motivating strategy).
But with all of the complaints about people never finding teams, the best bet after following the busy global channels is going to be to watch broadcast and search yourself, send out a few tells and invites, and make your own team. If you read these threads, apparently half of the server's population is looking for a team and yet they can't link up to make one, so you shouldn't have any trouble at all finding people. -
The character I didn't respec out of it on (50 EM/Elec) isn't played anymore - I tended to only use it as an absolute last resort: that is to say, after I'm out of (useful) inspirations, Demonic Aura isn't recharged, and I feel like I can finish up in less than 3 minutes. Since it hardly ever saw use I just dropped it in respecs.
When I first had it available I took it immediately, though - then decided that the hit point crash was really annoying on a character that didn't have Aid Self. With Aid Self it's not bad, though; you can recover endurance rapidly with Power Sink, Aid Self gets your hit points back, and there's a decent chance that everything in immediate melee range of you isn't going to be attacking due to the EMP when it crashes.
There are times when it's just plain fun, though - I tended to pop it and either go around Cap to the power stations and jump up and down or stand by Deathsurge and do /em roar. >.< -
I've got a completely-unslotted (pulled everything off with the EM changes a while back) level 50 EM/Elec and a level 50 Elec/Elec/Mu that I still play.
The second one already skipped Tough, Aid Self, and Power Surge and still seems to get by just fine as long as I use Power Sink early and often - albeit with a bit more concern than my SM/WP or DM/EA. I'm looking forward to see how she does with Energize. -
Heroes
Scorching Hot - Fire/Fire Blaster; 40 -> 41
Tempting Bait - Shield/SS Tanker; 33 -> 40
Niao - Claws/WP Scrapper; 33 -> 35
Loose Morals - Kin/Dark Defender; 25 -> 35
Amethyst Wraith - Warshade; 31 -> 33
Villains
Hirameki Denkou - Elec/Nin Stalker; 43 -> 47
Bad Cliche - DM/EA Brute; 41 -> 45
Best Intentions - Sonic/Pain Corruptor; 36 -> 38
Mall Rat - DB/WP Stalker; 34 -> 36
Deadly Treat - Bots/Poison MM; 25 -> 32
Little Bunny Pew Pew - Mind/Energy Dominator; 22 -> 25
Nobody really got a lot of progress, I had too much ADD to stick to any one character for very long. -
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Actually we spell it Colour and Neighbour the same way as the British do in Canada.
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See comment in OP about "French"... -
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Why isn't this forum dead yet?
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Seriously.
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I'm guessing it could start anywhere between 7am and 9am PDT and last for 72 hours?
... it's now 8am PDT and we're still here...
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Given the hatred we feel for these forums Mr. Smarty-pants, we would have preferred it be towards the beginning of that range, not the middle or end.
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For drama sake they are holding out until 8:59 am PDT .....
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More proof that the devs hate... uh, what was it they hate this week? -
Why isn't this forum dead yet?
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Hi Guys,
well, in just a few hours time this board will be dead and we will all proclaim amen.
I am no Luddite ...
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So does that mean I can borrow your PSP? -
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There was a recent proposal, in another thread (I think) to have Vig. be a scaling Endurance Discount or Endurance Recovery boost.
i.e. the lower the blue bar gets, either the less End it takes to use their powers, OR the more End they recover with each tick.
Functionally, quite similar to what the Defender already has, while being viable in all situations a Defender would find themself in.
I'm not sure if that would really improve the Defender's lot in life, but I don't think it would overpower the AT...
...unless making Stamina truely optional would be considered overpowered?
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It was my suggestion earlier in this thread (at the end of a "defenders are fine" post) of using the current endurance discount available but basing it off of the endurance bar (similar to defiance 1.0 being based off of hp); it would be useful solo or teamed, and would be the most useful when you need it the absolute most.
It also would encourage an active playstyle, since you're not likely to run out of endurance by blasting in between the buffs, debuffs, and heals. It also wouldn't change any sort of performance benchmark other than longevity - no increased buffs/debuffs for RO teams, no extra damage for the sake of extra damage unless you account for the easier time handling multiple AoEs in your attack chain.
I don't really see any downsides to it, since I don't think that making Stamina irrelevant counts as a problem. -
<QR to the side discussion>
Best AoE control for a melee set is Stone and anyone saying otherwise either hasn't played it or didn't take Fault; everyone talks about the KD on Fault and ignores the permastun that you can get with just SOs (and a short double-stack with Hasten, or perma-double-stack with IOs). And that's completely ignoring Tremor, which can be used between Faults if you really don't want things standing up.
But when you can keep 10 things staggering around for longer than it takes the power to recharge to do it again, who cares that they're standing up?
Claws has some soft control in Focus and Shockwave. If you want better single-target control there's SS (KD), SM (KD, Hold), EM (Stun), and Air Superiority is as good as Focus if you're just wanting control and available to anybody. But until Shockwave can keep an entire spawn from attacking all on its own for an indefinate period of time, I'm calling bs on the claim that it's the "best melee control set". -
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I use Knockout Blow >.>
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I used Aim, BU and Rain of Arrows when I saw her today.
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Conserve Power, Aim, Boost Range, Build Up, Power Boost, /em dance6, Inferno.
In that order.
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Only after I go buy an entire inventory worth of Damage Inspirations, just to make sure
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I actually have that exact buff/nuke chain set up on a single key on my G15, including the pause for 3 seconds to use /em dance6
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Since you're including the pause already anyway, use cce # ccevillaugh... Inferno should go off just after your body ignites. -
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Hm.
So, Sunless Mire -> Dwarf Mire -> Nova isn't really worthwhile?
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To expand on this: bind a key to untoggle either form and then fire off Quasar.
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I just have a bind to untoggle, my chain is usually something along the lines of Mire->Mire->Whack-a-Mole...er, Dwarf Smite->detoggle->Gravity Well->Unchain Essence->Quasar (if any survivors).
The Smite is there mostly so the front-loaded damage of GW will kill the mob while both Mires are up - if I've got enough of a buff from the Mires to do that anyway I'll just skip it. Quasar is usually getting hit just as the Dwarf Mire is expiring but still gets the buff since it was triggered before it wore off and Unchain doesn't scatter the bodies like Quasar does making Stygian a bit easier to get a good placement on.
For Hasten, I just leave it on auto in a visible tray so I can see when it recharges (same tray I have Stygian, Sunless Mire, Unchain Essence, and Extracted Essence in, for the same reason - I tend to use those as they recharge). -
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Then again, claws/stone armor sounds just plain silly.
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Only because you don't get a gigglesnort while thinking about a Granite Brute using Eviscerate.
I still want Stone Armor for Stalkers.
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Understanding how much and which inspirations to use is also an incredibly important skill.
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This. I don't have Tough or Aid Self on my Elec/Elec/Mu - nor did I have either while I was levelling her prior to IOs. She does fine on Relentless but you're going to learn that you need combat mobility to mess with the stupid AI and knowing how to use inspirations - you can't just stand there in the middle of a huge group and button-mash without a lot of help from IO set bonuses, Tough, and/or Aid Self - but just little 3-5' shifts in position will often get the AI to stop attacking even while they're still in melee range as it tries to run through routing paths to get to the same position it was at relative to you before. -
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I do the same thing. It's not a surefire way of telling anything, but it gives you a clue as to how much to expect from them.
Definitely not foolproof though, I've met players with no vet badges that were pretty good, and I've met players with 42 months worth that were idiots.
An EAT with no vet badges is a good sign of an AE baby though, especially if they're high level.
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I tend to check their power list if I check anything - that gives me at least some idea of what I can expect from them. About halfway through the first mission you can generally tell what kind of player they are based on how their using what they have - there are some trends (skipping vital powers, bios that are painful to read, that sort of thing) that you can go with based on what's in the character information screen but overall nothing in it is going to tell you how good of a player they are - even the trends are often things that someone will mock for their amusement.
As for an EAT with no vet badges, that's a sign of someone's second account just as much as it is a sign of an AE baby. I know of a few different people with more than one account that simply PL'd the other account to 50 so that they could unlock epics on it. -
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Can you hear that sound? It's the game tearing itself into two factions...AE babies and players.
It's a rift that may cause long term discord. I already find myself checking vet badges when I invite to teams.
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That's probably the dumbest way to check to see if someone knows how to play, and has been ever since i8 when the vet badges went in.
But hey, no big loss - people that know how to play probably don't want to team with you, either. -
I didn't get the Midnight Visage power running through it the last time I did it, but that's the first time it's happened. I don't play the character all that often, so I was just going to drop the rest of the way through.