Slaunyeh

And it's about time, too.

Pth. It's a mirage!

Why would they fork out so much gold, and then go and skimp on the wheelbarrow? Now they are just being petty.

The American dating convention, and by extension this forum, is in direct violation of ISO Standard 8601!

(Or, in other words: It was a joke. In more serious news, I find it silly to go all "raar! raar! thread necromancy!" on a thread that's only a few days old)

I still fully expect that both Statesman and Tyrant turn out to be Desdemona in disguise. She's in everyon... I mean in everything these days!

There have been hints about this since 2004, people!

That's why taking over the world is a lot more fun than actually ruling the world.

Being a villain would suck if there was no heroes to stop you at the very last moment.

Stacking hot dog temp powers.

That's how blasters were designed? They don't give you all those melee attacks just to make it easier to find room for power pools, you know.

As for this, I could do /regen instead, if someone else is more keen on /nin and being a unique snowflake.

The constantly sunny blue skies of Paragon creeps me the hell out!

Starting as Praetorians is an interesting idea... we'd be the only ones in the zones!

Dude, look at the dates. This thread died in December 2011. IT'S FROM THE FUTURE.

Fix'ed.

As an ooooold man, I find it a blessing that I can skip over some of the early content. I've done Mercy, Port Oakes and CaD millions of times. An express route to level 16 or 18 is a blessing!

For a newcomer though, it could be problematic to miss so much of the game's lore that is otherwise introduced in the early levels (granted, blue-side has already gotten rid of most of that introduction, but that issue is not nearly as prevalent in the Mercy Island remake).

Still. CoH's problem has always been (roughly) level 1-20. It's a hella fun game, but it takes a while to get there. I know a lot of RL friends who have given up long before getting to the good part (only to later go "woha, what's that??" when they see me play). So, I'm on the fence about it a bit. It has both good and bad aspects, and I'm not sure whether it will ultimately prove harmful or beneficial to the game. Maybe it will cancel itself out!

That pretty much sums up my expectations, as well. Looking forward to seeing it this weekend though!

Hey! I thought I was the only one who had that suspicion! I've even been known to reroll "cursed" characters.

The other day, I missed with four Assassin Strikes in a row. That's *start assassin strike* *miss* *wait for assassin strike to recharge* *start assassin strike* *miss* etc. So it was four in a row with nothing but a build up in between.

The combat attribute monitor was reporting a 95% hit chance. There's something like 0,000625% chance of that happening. Either I really need to start playing the lotto, the random number function is quirky, or the attribute monitor is lying about my hit chance.

Why no other game has this is beyond me.

I have a lowbie Spines/nin stalker on Exalted (red side, obviously ). Never played /nin before, so that might be interesting.

Colour me interested!

Like scrappers get a scaling critical chance based on the rank of their target, the bonus damage of AS could scale with the rank of the target. That's not a bad idea.

As for the lack of AoE, I guess I never really understood that argument. I've never rolled a brute or a scrapper for the AoE damage. If I wanted the best in AoE, why not play a blaster?

Then they should remove Kinetic Melee for not being a good theme fit for stalkers.

I'm sorry, but it's impossible to answer your question in the way you want.

"Because I think it's fun" is the only reason I play stalkers. That doesn't tell you whether you will find stalkers fun. Even if I had a concrete "non-anecdotal" reason to enjoy stalkers, who's to say you'd enjoy it for the same reason?

You are basically looking for an answer that doesn't exist. If you want to try a stalker, do so. If you're afraid you might "waste" your play time, then don't.

There's nothing we can say that will guarantee whether you will enjoy stalkers or not.


But to maybe make it easier for you, my observations are as follows (and I'm sure others will disagree): In general, Stalkers have their major "gameplay changing" growth at level 6 (when you get assassin strike) at level 26 (when you get your tier 8 attack and actually have a proper attack chain that doesn't involve assassin strike) and level 32 (when you get your tier 9 attack). Depending on set, level 26 or 32 is where the famous "BU -> AS -> Placate -> Strong attack" attack chain starts to make sense. Placate is kinda wasted on a tier 1 or tier 2 attack.

So, to answer your own original question, consider this:

1) How do you like playing a stalker before level 6?
2) How do you like playing your stalker after level 6? The "sneak up and STAB" play style will stay with you for at least another 20 levels. Maybe much longer if you like it. If you don't like it, "scrapper-viability" is a loooong 20 - 26 levels away. If you like how you stalker play before level 10 (and outside the DfB trial ), it shouldn't be a chore to get him to the next stage. If you don't, now is probably a good time to stop.
3) Get to level 26. How do you like the feel now? You're still a sneaky *******, but once you have your tier 8 (and maybe slotted it up a bit) you're not nearly as reliant on being a sneaky *******. You could scrap it out before if you really had to. Now you're good at it.
4) Get to level 32. Now you have all your attacks. Your gameplay isn't really going to change much from now on. The only major factors from 32 to 50 are outside forces like enemy groups that may or may not suck. Do you like your stalkers more or less after 32 (or 33)? If the answer is more, then you're well on your way to enjoy the rest of the game. If less... well, then you probably don't want to waste more time on it.

Those are the major stages. I think the most critical one (especially if you're worried about time investments) is the level 6 one. Do you enjoy playing your stalker at pre-10 levels? Then you will probably enjoy it all the way. If you don't, the play experience isn't going to change much. At least not for a long time.

Playing a character to level 6, 8 or 10 shouldn't be a huge investment, and should give you a pretty good idea. Just don't rely exclusively on DfB data.