Talen Lee

Placate is the only tool that stalker EM has that Brute EM lacks; Billz feels that stalker EM does not have mitigation issues, and that Brute EM does. Therefore, it must be placate that is doing the duty of mitigating all the extra damage, and the lower HP must indicate it's doing a ton of work on it.

As far as 'hit and run' goes, you might as well discuss which AT is best at ferrying salvage around. It's not a tactic that anyone is built for, or provided particularly amazing tools for.

I guess I just disagree with Billz as to the role of the stalker, and I feel that his description is dismissive of the stalker as part of the discussion of EM.

Uh, didn't this come up in the (formerly) closed beta forums? That's why brutes got the barely-felt kick in the junk they got in GR; to bring them in between the scrapper and the tanker. The stalker isn't even on the same scale and it's meant to be - but there was not room or time for the changes. The problem is on Castle's radar, though.

(Failing that, you can predict anything will happen, Soom (TN).)

So is it a reasonable permutation of your argument that placate represents enough mitigation for you to be happy with Energy Melee? Hide won't do it; hide replaces another power and doesn't diminish aggro. When you add in the fewer HP, surely that means that Placate is doing even more work than you feel EM should be doing for a brute?

Also, isn't it rather disingenuous to claim that an AT that gets critical hits more often than a scrapper, a device that rewards making more attacks, to be 'hit and run'? If anything, the stalker, which lacks defenses and the utility power is even more focused on doing damage than scrappers and brutes.

Permadom has just gotten easier and easier, and the budget threshold has gotten lower and lower.

Billz's notes are about the set lacking in mitigation. Do stalkers somehow get more mitigation out of EM?

(I am coming more and more to be of the opinion that people making these complaints are complaining about brute performance primarily, given the positive tone that Ultimo had about it on a tank, and that anyone else can go to hell as long as They Get Theirs, Jack)

Well, sure, but are the problems you have for the set somehow not problems for the stalker?

But necessary to fix the set rather than fix Em tanks and brutes.

Fix that. :\

:O leverage fan?

The thing that surprises me is that 20s placate sounds really scary vs a single target when your defenses are already gonzo. In most team play situations - where I feel my bane needed help - it seems kinda bleh, since basically any setup of placate+attack is going to lead to corpse pounding.

It's a new change that could be applied to Kheldians in a way that could make them better.

So, no, it won't happen.

Just be careful you don't wed it to a spamhappy DoT like Fire Cages. Could be useful on Ice, but I have no idea on how Ice plays.

'Better.'

Cottage ruel

I love that I can randomly drop 20 million on someone I'd never met in the D because he needed to make costume changes and couldn't afford it... and still have ten times that left over on a character who hadn't marketeered.

Yeah, I was able to work up a build for my Fire/fire that had 45 S/L, thanks to Tough/Combat Jumping as a basis, but the build just lost out on other things that made it good enough. If you want to see how you feel with large amounts of S/L, get a Kinetic Shield from the marketplace, and run around with it on, to see how it compares to no defense.

Typically, just enough defence to take the edge off the damage you're dealt, and give Healing Flames longer time between the moments you call on it, is all you need. I hit 25% SLEN and that was plenty against everything but cimerorans. And of course, +HP is also something you can make use of.