Thorizdin_LotD

Time it sometime. Also, if you get hit anytime during the animation it doesn't hit. If you want to test I'll be glad to copy over to test this weekend and show you. AS stops the moment you get debuffed or damaged. Now, this isn't to say that everything animates properly all of the time. AS is subject to the same limitations that sometimes causes an attack to fire but never show the animation. Careful testing under controlled conditions will show what is correct. (BTW, I won't stake my life to 4 seconds on the animation, its possible that its 3 but that is not what I remember from time tests.)

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this says that stealth cap at 30 is 1003.0 and the perception cap is 1013.0...
So even in your example... the range would be 1013.0-890=123... well within 2 slotted TP... no? (no not an expert so I could be wrong)

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I helped, in a very minor way, collect some of that data and its what my calculations are all based off of. The issue isn't where the caps are, but what you as a Stalker can achieve solo. -890 is what Stealth+Hide gives you. In any case, most, but not all, of the Blappers also run Whirlwind, so even if you TP into AS range you have to deal with the autohit interrupt. Thats if both of them fail to see you in your 4 second animation setting up in melee range and fail to knock your head off. (the activate AS then TP away tactic was a bug that has already been fixed IIRC)

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Hide+Stealth = ( -500 + -390) -890 Per
Ok question... does group invisibility stack with hide and stealth?(-575 per for a total of -1465, over the cap and over 1280 (500+780per))
Obviously there's the cap... and the difference between both is 10 feet...

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Well, currently this is an academic question since villains don't get the Illusion set so they don't have Group Invis. A Stalker can get to the -PER cap by stacking Hide+Stealth and having a team mate cast Grant Invis on him. That will let a pair of Stalkers get into AS range, but they still have to deal with Whirlwind and the fact that most good players won't even let you get an AS off just via movement skills.

Honestly I spend very little time on the ground. I use, as do most of us, SJ for our primary travel power. Bounce off ledges, change directions in mid-air, basically act like a demented flea all of this makes it basically impossible for a Stalker to "guess" where we will be.

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We had a 4 person team in WB last night that was only Cor's (at some points a couple of other members were there on other AT's) for an hour and half. Of course any kind of large fight draws out the solo Stalkers, I was never AS'd and I don't believe we had anyone AS'd who wasn't held or immob'ed first, despite having swarms of Stalkers trying to play.

Edit: Perception numbers are based on combat in SC.

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WhirwindX4? Stacked Tactics? What is the secret? Or, Radiation Infection

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Movement. If you have long, 4 second or higher rooting animations, you may have to use WW, otherwise use your rooting animations while in a jump, by the time your animation is done you bound back off. We also usually have one person running an autohit aura, that can be used as a shelter and we rebuff there or drop a target based AoE to buff in.

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So... why not use stealth with hide and TP in from above?
You can TP from way more than 75 yards...
And Stealth with Hide gets you to your stealth cap...

Also... Aim isnt a good defense for stealth...
it's a 10 seconds glimpse.

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Your data is way off. First, Hide+Stealth does _not_ take you to the Stealth cap, it takes you to -890 PER, the cap in SC for Stalkers is -1007. CM stacks with itself with a per bonus of +390 for each instance. (note I actually made a mistake in my intial math by not including Base Perception.)

Hide+Stealth = -890 Per
x2 CM = +780
Base Per = 500

The Blappers will have a total +PER of 1280. The Stalker will have a -PER of 890. That means that the Stalker will be visible to the Blappers from 390 feet away (130 yards).

Aim actually provides no +PER benefit, instead its benefit is to be able to cut through your defenses.

So in other words, you will be seen from far outside of TP range.

If that works, you aren't going for a "skilled" trio. Here is what happens on Freedom. The Emp buffs both Blappers and stacks 2 CM's on them, while in SI so you can't see him from as far away. The Blappers can now see you from 130 yards away. With Fortitude, Aim, and Buildup defense means very little since they will always have a high level of toHitBuffs and you are in danger of being two shotted trying to close on one of the Blappers. As for getting of an AS, thats frankly laughable against a skilled opponent. I don't have to even know you're there to prevent from being able to AS me.

We had a 4 person team in WB last night that was only Cor's (at some points a couple of other members were there on other AT's) for an hour and half. Of course any kind of large fight draws out the solo Stalkers, I was never AS'd and I don't believe we had anyone AS'd who wasn't held or immob'ed first, despite having swarms of Stalkers trying to play.

Edit: Perception numbers are based on combat in SC.
Edit2: Corrected Per range to include Base Perception.

You left out the caveat, if both groups have roughly equal skill level. A good Stalker can pick at a poor group one by one. If you don't think a couple of Blappers and with a pocket Emp won't win most contests against 3 Stalkers of equal skill, you're fooling yourself.

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I also disagree to the post you reply to with the buildup AS hide and stealth...

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Sorry, I don't have any idea of what your talking about.

The real problem is that it just isn't that hard to kill a solo squishy with any of the high damage AT's. Think about this, a decently build Spines/Regen Scrapper can run around any of the PvP solo and rack up kills againts enemy squishies. In fact, many/most scrapper builds can do the same thing in relative safety. A stealthy Blapper can do much the same thing, except that they will be more reliant on BF's than a Stalker. The problem is that most people who play squishies accept their degree of squishiness in PVE because they get to control the tempo of the battle, when they are hurt, they don't move forward until they have healed. This kind of approach and the limitations of the "AI" that mobs use has given people a false impression of how durable a squishy really is. In PvP, you don't control any of those factors and as a squishy you are the number one target of everyone on the battlefield.

As for forcing teaming, I think that is more an education issue. I certainly wouldn't mind if something were added to the warnings that says a team is strongly reccomended. I thought that one of the NPC's actually says something like this, but I don't remember for certain. In any case, the game does a poor job of preparing players for the change from the PvE environment to the PvP one. I don't really think that a forced teaming mechanic is always needed, do I really need a team when all I want to do is run missions or badge hunt? Creating teams made up of people who don't have the same goals won't really help, IMO.

I think your first issue is a common one, and the root of most peoples problems, even today. Stalkers are hard for most AT's to fight 1v1. The problem with this is that PvP is team balanced.

1 Stalker versus 1 Blaster....Stalker wins most of the time

2 Stalkers versus 1 Blaster and 1 Emp.....about even

3 Stalkers versus 2 Blasters and 1 Emp....Blasters win most of the time

This is provided that both sides have decent PvP builds and equal skill levels.

I don't disagree, when the competition is low in the zones I often turn Stealth off. However, not running Stealth when the competition is good is not a good idea. Running into a full Tribute team without as much -PER will make ya realize how little damage Stalkers do compared to Blappers.

Which is exactly why NB is the weakest Stalker primary in PvP, it relies way too much on AS to be effective. All of the other sets have options, its just that EM and Spines have the best other than AS options.

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. As it is its the least used attack for most Stalkers.

[/ QUOTE ] That's just ridiculous. It is the MOST used attack in PvP. The first thing ANY stalker tries do is AS someone. I'm /SR...teamed, I see exactly what happens.

Sorry...you've lost all credibility.

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I'm sorry, who are you again? What server do you PvP on and in what SG? You realize that being /SR doesn't give ya the special decoder ring...you have 1 layer of +PER, which means you see the Stalkers that don't also run Stealth....which by and large are the lower skill ones. You have no clue what it takes to AS in the PvP zones and it is the least used attack, the one that has the least value when you are unhidden and makes you the most vulnerable. It also takes the greatest amount of endurance.

Sorry, but I don't think you have the foggiest idea of how difficult and how many attempts it takes to get an AS in the current environment. Adding an additional range check would absolutely neuter the skill. As it is its the least used attack for most Stalkers. Its already tremendously limited, but players on the other side only see the successes.

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I think I can say without a doubt that you don't PvP much do ya?

[/ QUOTE ] Then you've just exposed your lack of insight.

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You keep making ridiculous statements like claiming that Kineticists can't stay alive long enough to buff....what do you expect people to think? In team based PvP thats part of what you do, help keep the squishies alive so they can do their job. It is a reasonable expectation that a good team will have a kineticist for many of their team builds. We do, and we don't have any problems keeping them alive.

I think I can say without a doubt that you don't PvP much do ya?

I didn't say anything of the sort and I resent you trying to cast my post that way. Mieux posted that AS would be effective via teaming with Doms, I pointed out that Doms are the most ineffective PvP AT specifically because of their inability to effectively mez and that chaining Stalker effectiveness to Doms is rather ridiculous. BTW, there are multiple ways of getting aroud rooting animations, WW is just one of them.

So, what AT's are you teamed with when you PvP? How are squishies stacking enough mezzes to get through your inherent and buffed mezzed protection, not to mention BF's? If you aren't teaming or not getting buffed by a support character on your team, then you really don't have the understanding of how high level PvP works.

Please, go smoke that crack pipe somewhere else. Doms and controllers already scream about how ineffective their holds are, you want to make Stalkers reliant on something that is considered largely ineffective by the AT that uses it? As for rooting animations, how many good PvP'ers whose sets have rooting animations don't have Whirlwind? AS is already the least used attack (other than Brawl) on my character in the PvP zones.

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I'm pretty certain this isn't the case. I've been hit behind buildings before now and I know for a fact that it doesn't do a range check like snipes do.

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After extensive testing on this, I can say with a high degree of certainty that it doesn't do a second range check, but does fail if LoS is broken.

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SG mates and I tested this out extensively as well, and the LoS check is broken as well.

We used this when testing:
[*]Go to the top of a building (we tried in Sirens) and stand relatively near the edge[*]Initiate AS on the target[*]Once AS is started, have the target run and leap off the side of the building and down toward the street

Once the player is over the side of the roof and falling toward the street, line of sight is broken yet the target is still hit. This is repeatable and we sent in bug reports about it. Response we've received individually have said there's an issue with the LoS check failing under certain conditions (seems like this is one of them).

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We didn't test by jumping off of buildings, only via "normal" movement techniques. I wonder what other situations the LoS check might fail under.... Thanks for the info.

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I'm almost certain we'll disagree, though. I see it as a balance issue as well as a concept issue, so this is all a matter of my opinion.

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From a hypothetical concept PoV, I actually agree. The problem is that all melee attacks work this way. Just like a ranged attack will go around corners to hit you, which is pretty funny if you take the time to watch the animation. Impale has a fairly slow animation to the target, and if you are trying to hit someone who is very good at movement the attack ends up following them like some sort of homing missle made of spines. What I am getting at is that there is no active dodging in this game. Once the attack begins (except interruptable ones) a "roll" is made. It doesn't matter what you do, once the "roll" indicates a hit, one will land, even it should be impossible for it to. Thats why you can jump up with a ranged attack toggled on target you can't get LoS on and have the attack go through. Logically, that attack should fail, since the game will show you shooting through a rail or a floor.

To be honest, moving the range check from the beginning to the end will almost have the same impact as putting in two checks. The stalker can't move to position himself once the animation begins, so unless the target stays in melee range, the attack won't land. Why would the fact that you could start the AS while the target is out of "knife" range be any more logical than the current situation?

I play a Corruptor in WB on a regular basis, he has no particular build options to make him a hard target for AS. However, I have only been AS'ed a handful of times. PvP has, and should have, a learning curve. This means having to counter, by build, tactics, or teaming the things that you are likely to encounter. On Freedom, we really have a PvP savvy bunch on both sides. Getting an AS off on a target that isn't held is already quite difficult.

Does it make sense to change the game when a change in tactics will work? PvP develops and evolves over time. Builds that were once consider weak will get used in new ways and suddenly become FOTM. Sonic Resonance is a set that is in the process of doing just this. Look how many good teams have one or two, and ask why. Tactics that work for awhile get countered and fall into disuse. This entire process is the meta-game, as we progress through it I am afraid that Stalkers are going to need an upward adjustment rather than a downward one on AS.

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It's not realistic concept-wise to get hit with a devatating and interruptable melee attack when you're traveling across the zone.

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Hmm, then there are a laundry list of things that need to be changed. Why can I destroy my enemys with blasts of fire, but I can't open a normal office door? Why do ranged attacks still hit me if I zoom around the corner while the animation is going off? Why don't mobs in PvE ever call for help, even if their is a group right around the corner?

Keep in mind, this is a game, as such it has _many_ things that don't work conceptually due to technology constraints as well as balance concerns.

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Movement should be a valid tactic for avoiding an Assassin Strike. If I get placated, I know what's coming, and my first instinct is to run away. In practice, this isn't the correct thing to do. You should try to break LoS within three seconds or interrupt the AS. Running away should actually work for such a powerful attack.

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Movement _is_ an effective counter, however not straightline run for the hills movement. If you need a concept, think about this, if you run away from an assasin in a straight line, you have just given him an excellent open shot at your unprotected back.

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I do have a question, however: does Snipe, the closest analogue to AS, make a second range check?

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I would have to check to make sure, but I don't believe so. Both power seem to work the same way, except that AS can only start in melee range.

umm, what? If there is no range check at the beginnning then the animation could start from anywhere. If the range is then checked at the end the only way AS would land is if your target moved closer to you, ie into melee range. I don't think that is workable at all. The AS mechanics are fine as they exist IMO. Its not impossible to get one off, but against a skilled opponent they are few and far between. We had a great series of fights in SC the other night, with large numbers on both sides. The entire 2 hours we were in there I only got 2 AS's off on targets that weren't held in field with easily 30+ targets.

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I'm pretty certain this isn't the case. I've been hit behind buildings before now and I know for a fact that it doesn't do a range check like snipes do.

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After extensive testing on this, I can say with a high degree of certainty that it doesn't do a second range check, but does fail if LoS is broken.

Someone soloing in SC, that doesn't have a method to avoid AS deserves to get a sword/claw/spine/fist in the back. People keep trying to balance the game solo and thats not how it works.