Spruce
-
Posts
39 -
Joined
-
I'm wondering if there's a good way to quantify how much the loss in stalker survivability hurts you. I've now taken down an even-con Manticore a couple times, and his Teleport Arrow is hitting me for 1028.58 damage through 54.39% resistance. I haven't died to him but I suspect that's a matter of luck; any time I'm sitting at < 1000 hp (which I did for a non-insignifcant portion of the fight) I'm liable to get killed. I wasted a lot of my healing from Energize just trying to keep myself over that mark.
If I'm doing my math right, Tp Arrow is doing 2255 damage before resists; that means that it will one-shot any stalker with less than 29% or so smashing resistance (yes, my combat log says smashing, even though it's an arrow). That rules out /SR, /energy, /nin, and possibly a lot of /regen builds from taking him down without relying on luck (with enough DPS and defense you could maybe kill him before getting hit by it, but not consistently). The burst would just be too much, even if they could easily handle his average damage.
I'm rather new to the AV soloing scene so I don't know just how much of that sort of burst damage is out there. I'm beginning to suspect, though, that due to our HP cap the capability to handle burst limits our AV survivability moreso than the ability to heal consistently. This worries me a little.
It also makes me feel better about choosing to do this with a resist-based set.
(EDIT: According to the wiki, Teleport Arrow is autohit, which would totally screw over non-resist sets, but my combat logs indicate that this is not the case) -
Uh, it's awesome in resist sets too. Like I said, I'm soft-capped to range and melee with one application of DA on my /elec.
-
Matter of fact, I soloed my first AV just a few days ago on a stalker, an even-con Hro'Dtohz in AE. Just now I managed to tank two of them simultaneously while I killed one (although the second one killed me because I wasn't paying attention and ran out of end). I'm running a NB/elec build that is soft-capped to range, soft-caps to melee with one application of DA, and has 35% AoE defense, plus all the resistances /elec gives me except Grounded. I run with all my armor toggles, CJ, maneuvers, both fighting toggles, and hover, all with no stamina. Just Physical Perfection and a Numina proc.
DPS is pretty low (around 118 when I took down Hro'Dtohz) as I'm still working to afford all the purples for my damage powers and whatnot. Also I'm actually missing Golden Dragonfly from my build right now, so... there's a lot of room for improvement there.
I haven't tried many others yet, as I'm waiting til I get my DPS up, but I'm mostly happy with my survivability so far. No DDR and only 1540 health hurts me in certain cases, but I'm doing my best to learn to work around those limitations. -
Um. No. AS (in most sets) has a DPA of 46.34 when non-critting. Which is not what we're talking about.
An AS crit, going by the in-game real numbers, deals 389.28 base damage. Treating placate+AS as a single "attack", the DPA on this for most sets will be 389.28 / (3 + 1.5) ~= 86.5, which is higher than most other stalker attacks. NB/BS have a longer AS animation, so the DPA for those sets will be 75.3; KM's is shorter so it will give you 93.4.
Now, AS does not benefit from the stalker's scaling crits (since the AS crit is guaranteed and already figured in), so you have to take that into account when comparing numbers. For example, the NB power Gambler's Cut has a nominal DPA of 69.72, but it crits 10%-31% of the time, so it's actual average DPA will be 76.7 solo or 91.3 with 7 teammates nearby.
AS has a few benefits, though:
* You can use it in place of your lowest-damage attacks in your chain
* When soloing, you gain a little extra survivability from being hidden
* placate -> BU -> AS is the most efficient way to use BU, as you only use 3s of your BU to AS, rather than 4.5
* Dark, Elec, Energy, and Kin criticals deal exotic damage, so the guaranteed crits will mean less of your damage is typically resisted.
My intuition is that using placate+AS will almost always be a dps increase solo or on small teams, the only exceptions being high-performance NB or BS builds. On larger teams, it may be beneficial to skip the AS and just do your normal attack chain for the extra crits. KM will probably always benefit from AS.
That's just from looking at a few numbers though. Experience or detailed modeling may prove me wrong, given the number of variables involved (resistances, damage procs in fast powers, chance to be interrupted, etc). -
Yes, but if the pseudopet's power is flagged as non-aggro-inducing, there won't be any aggro to redirect.
I think. -
Ooh, hadn't thought of that. You could get around it if you could find a way to flag the DoT portion as non-aggro-inducing, by giving it to a pseudopet or something (not sure if that's how pseudopets work, but whatever).
Implementation issues aside, the mechanic would allow stalker DPS to scale up as the number of mobs in a spawn increases, just as it does for other ATs that have strong AoE attacks. That's what I meant by faux-AoE. -
Okay here's an idea I don't think I've seen yet - non-stacking DoTs.
Give stalkers some method of applying a DoT with good damage and moderate duration to a target. It should be easy to apply multiple times, but multiple stacks on a single target would be redundant.
Advantages:
* Stalker ST DPS would increase slightly, ideally just enough to bring them up to par with scrappers
* Stalkers would gain faux-AoE damage. It would still be (appropriately) weaker than scrapper/brute AoE as it would require some setup time to apply to each mob, but it would be something.
* Stalkers would gain a mostly unique, not-too-gimmicky, and always available mechanic to set them apart from the other melee classes.
* Hit-and-run would be more viable for people who like that sort of thing, I guess.
* Adds viability (though admittedly not a lot due to the setup time) even in the "every minion/lieutenant dies in three seconds" situation, because such a team will be fighting spawns with multiple bosses.
* Adds delicious stalker-y flavor. NB/BS get bleed effects, DB gets poisons, DarkM gets lingering shadows, ElecM gets... something, I dunno.
The main problems would be in the implementation, and are twofold:
* How does the DoT get delivered? It could be added to every stalker's t1, but that would force stalkers into yet another mandatory power pick, which the AT really doesn't need. Or you could have every ST attack apply the DoT while under the effects of BU, but that ties the stalker's performance to BU even more than it already is, which again isn't good. Although, it could make up for BU's inferior (to scrappers) buff numbers when placate/AS isn't available.
* Is it feasible technically? I don't think there are any non-stacking DoTs in the game, and making the DoT a granted power a la bruising or demoralize wouldn't work because then the damage wouldn't be affected by the purple patch, which would be bad. -
I'd go as far as to say that such a buff would be even crazier than getting fitness for free. I'm pretty sure that offered the choice between 4 extra power picks and 6 extra slots, I'd take the slots on most of my characters.
CoX characters really, really don't need access to more set IO bonuses. -
Quote:It's not. =(Originally Posted by Siolfir
I'm not sure if the linked post from Castle in the OP is visible to everyone
So, late to the party, and most of these ideas have been mentioned in some form, but here are some opinions (it's late and I'm a stalker noob so go easy on me):
Even if one accepts that stalkers should be the highest-damage melee AT, it still doesn't make sense thematically (or functionally, since heroes and villains don't need their own distinct melee-damage-blender ATs in the face of GR) for stalkers to have a higher base melee damage than scrappers. Stalkers achieve their (conceptually) superior damage through their backstabiness; if a stalker and a scrapper are both just punching you in the face, the scrapper should be doing more damage. Punching people in the face is kind of the scrapper's thing. Let 'em have it.
On the other hand, if we accept that stalkers are reliant on their AS's for their damage, it would be really nice if they were reliable. I'm personally not convinced that an uninterruptible AS is a great idea; however I would really like it if placate granted a few seconds of unbreakable hidden status. Seems like half the time I use the damn thing I happen to hit the button right as a mob is beginning its attack animation; hide gets insta-broken and there's nothing I can do about it. The reason I don't advocate an uninterruptible AS is so that you still need to maintain some situational awareness when setting up the attack, making it better to navigate out of AoE radii and pick off lonely mobs - but it still doesn't screw you over too bad if you do get hit by an AoE, thanks to the unbreakable hidden-from-placate. If AS is still too hard to pull off reliably, its activation time and/or uninterruptible time could be shortened as well.
While we're at it, if AS was autohit that would be totally sweet. Nothing like leading off with BU->AS, whiffing, and then having to decide whether to wait for AS to recharge and lose the BU, or just open with something random. More of a QoL issue than a balance one though.
One thing I'd really like to see is Terrorize made to work more consistently, and maybe the concept expanded to include other effects as well. Tossing a few controls or debuffs the stalkers way could be a sensible way to give it more function in large groups, without adding a whole lot to its solo game. For example, the -regen debuff that some people have been calling for could be added to each powersets t1 attack when it crits from stealth - it would be the same deal as Terrorize, except instead of triggering the "Terrorize" AoE fear, it would do a "Poison Blade" effect with a ST regen debuff. The t2 attack could have a "Feint" effect that does a small-to-moderate cone confuse. My imba-sense is telling me that giving such a high-damage class that much control would be cheesy, but logically I'm not certain it would be - using Feint would burn your hidden status so you'd have to give up a ton of damage to get it, and it's not like other villain ATs don't pair control with damage already.
I'm definitely moving out of "easy fix" territory here but thematically, it makes a lot of sense - stealthy supers typically use fear and confusion to deal with large numbers of enemies, and it'd be nice to see that more represented in CoX. -
Disruption field doesn't notify mobs or generate aggro. Feel free to keep it on your pet rock at all times when soloing (though for controllers the debuff is -22.5%, not -30%).
Quote:If your shields are slotted, a /sonic alone can cap the pet to everything but smashing. I certainly wouldn't fault you for pursuing the set resistances (because, why not?) but it'll be damn near unkillable from the moment you get it. And before this comes up, yes, the pet res caps at 90%, and yes, even that 100% psi resistance does indeed get capped to 90%.Originally Posted by Gypsy_of_Paradox
It actually synergies great
Sonic Shields + Pet Resist Procs + Animated Stones high resistances
A favorite tactic of mine is to take stealth and train the pet straight into a spawn before hitting it myself, just to be extra sure that there are no nasty alpha things that will hit me if my opening controls miss anyone. It also ensures that the pet is actually engaged in the fight and granting the res debuff and not just standing around picking its nose while I nuke things from range.
My first 50 was an earth/sonic. -
You can have my super speed when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Ordinarily I'm more of a min-maxer than a concept builder, but not having a travel power just doesn't feel right.
Also the NR animation makes me gag a little on most characters. -
tl;dr People who refuse to exemp to below their level make me chuckle.
I leveled from 6 to 20 today in 1 hour, 40 minutes (before, after - beware largeish images). I ran entirely solo at +0/x1 through an AE mission consisting of nothing but spawns consisting of one boss and one minion. I was exemped to level one the entire time, and always fighting even cons. My claws/WP brute ran with High Pain Tolerance and Fast Healing, using Swipe, Strike, Jump Kick, and Brawl for damage. I used no enhancements. In those 100 minutes I killed 278 spawns. The bosses were Luminous Eidolons; the minions were Coralax Green Hybrids.
The limits given by the chart in the OP suggest 1.1 - 0.06 = 1.04 hours to go from 6 to 20, so my time of 1.66 hours doesn't show much until you extrapolate out the numbers. 278 spawns in 100 minutes means that I can kill 2.78 spawns per minute, or 166.8 per hour. Both the mob types I fought yielded exactly 1.2 times the standard mob xp for their level as given by the wiki at every level from 6 to 19. I assume this is maintained all the way to 50. Since I'm exemped to 1 the whole time, kill speed does not change as I level beyond 6. Therefore, the amount of time required to get to any level can be fairly easily calculated: each spawn is worth the minion xp plus the boss xp for its level, times 1.2. The total xp required divided by this number gives the number of spawns required to level, and this divided by 166.8 gives the number of hours to level. Tersely,
xp to level / ((minion xp + boss xp) * 1.2) / 166.8 = leveling time in hours.
Example: At level 20, a minion gives 50 xp and a boss gives 500 xp, so a spawn gives (50 + 500) * 1.2 = 660 xp. Level 21 requires 28000 xp, so I will have to kill 28000 / 660 = 43 spawns, rounding up. This should take me 43 / 166.8 = 0.258 hours. Or,
28000 / ((50 + 500) * 1.2) / 166.8 = 0.258 hours.
To get from 30 to 31 should take
254000 / ((210 + 2100) * 1.2) / 166.8 = 0.556 hours. Incidentally, this is the first level at which this method surpasses the limits given in the OP.
40 to 41 should take
1692900 / ((892 + 7582) * 1.2) / 166.8 = 1.001 hours
and 49 to 50
4973400 / ((2464 + 14784) * 1.2) / 166.8 = 1.445 hours.
The entire 1-50 trip, according to my calculations, should require killing 4457 spawns and take less than 27 hours. Honestly, I'm having a hard time believing this can be right, but there it is.
Notes and considerations:- I can't think of a better way to kill things at level 6 than Swipe/Strike/Jump Kick with full fury, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. In particular, JK is less DPE than it "should" be, which might matter at higher levels when free end refills are less frequent. I completely forgot about vet powers, so I don't know if they would have helped or not.
- Similarly, there may be better mobs to choose than Vahzilok and Coralax. In particular, the Vahzilok bosses must have had some sort of defense ability, because I would see my hit chance drop to around 60% sometimes. If there's a boss with worse defense and a better xp value, this could increase xp rate by quite a bit.
- Still similarly, a larger map might have been good to minimize downtime during loading screens. The one I used had room for 32 spawns and I ran through it 9 times, meaning 17 loading screens (I didn't leave the last mission before taking the second screenshot; I guess I should have but 100 minutes was just too perfect). Also, a single spawn with several minions in the front of an indoor map would help to rebuild fury quickly after zoning in, but I don't know if this is feasible in a way that increases xp/hour.
- If there's a way to eliminate minions from the map, that would help too. As is, I don't have the survivability to let them live. Mostly they died in one hit anyway.
- Over the course of the run, my end recovery looked like:
55 CaB's * 25 = 1375 end
13 TaB's * 33.333 = 433.33 end
100 minutes * 100 = 10,000 end
14 levels * ~75 = ~1050 end
So I used around 12,858 endurance, 78% of which came from natural regeneration, 14% from insps, and 8% from dings. I never ran out of end without a blue in my tray, and I could have been slightly more end efficient if I had managed Sprint and Ninja Run better. Thus, the lack of dings at the high levels might hurt me, but probably not more than a few percent. - There was one point where I might have died if I hadn't had any greens in my tray. Only happened once though, and it was probably avoidable. So survivability shouldn't be an issue.
- I ran the mission on a level 44 character and got standard mob xp, not standard * 1.2. I don't know when they stop giving bonus xp, but even if they gave standard xp for all 50 levels the time would still be under 33 hours.
-
Quote:*facepalm* my reading comprehender is broken. My bad.Originally Posted by ArcticFahx
Benumb doesn't affect Purple Triangles, it affects mez resistance.
-
So I mainly just lurk, but felt I should stop to crush your drea - er, to point out that this defender guide says that Benumb doesn't affect purple triangles (under "Benumb mechanics"). No idea where that info comes from, but it's there.