UberGuy

I don't really get this one. All set bonuses bypass the ED "cap", so it's really no different having a +heal (or +regen) set bonus. Those are both reasonably common, so this seems to dilute the value of the proc on that basis. Compared to damage-dealing attacks, most builds have low-damage, fast-recharging attacks the DPA of which are increased significantly by the smallest damage procs, compared to the ... HPA? that the Panacea would add to most heals.

I tend to prefer the higher recharge slotting I can get with Doctored Wounds. For five slots, I get more recharge benefit in the power I'm slotting it in than I would with Panaceas. Unless I have an awful lot of heals to at least five slot, I come out ahead on the specific power in question, and only a wee bit ahead on everything else. For the price, that's not been compelling to me on anything I've considered them in.

That's a good point, and one I had overlooked. Thanks for mentioning it.

The rest of this thread seems to have gone to the americans, but I wanted to add something on the topic of just looking at the price of goods, and not knowing their transaction volumes.

Looking at individual parts of the market is confusing about whether or how much inflation is going on. Even if we don't cherry pick, none of us likely has broad enough market data to say for sure what's going on over time in terms of transaction volume. We know some stuff has gone up dramatically in price, some stuff has gone down, and some stuff hasn't changed much. What we don't know for sure is how much of the total market's money volume those items contribute. Other posters have alluded to or outright said that, but I wanted to try and express it a bit more visually, to try and get it across to more folks if possible.

Imagine we have this simplified market scenario:

So in this imaginary market, we sell 5 items a day that cost 500M inf, and 1000 items a day that cost 2.5M inf. Across the whole market, 10B inf changes hands a day.

Now, let's look at an imaginary version of this market from three years ago, and imagine that prices were quite different.

In this older market, our top tier items (row A) used to cost 1/10th of what they do today. The next tier down costs 1/5th of that they do today. Items in Row C didn't change. Maybe this is a category of goods whose prices stayed consistent, but more likely, this is a mix of that, plus some stuff the price of which fell, but was replaced by some stuff the price of which rose. Rows D and E are goods that used to cost 1/2 and 2/3 of what they do currently. Across the whole market, 4B inf changed hands a day.

Now, pretty clearly this example market experienced broad price inflation. In both cases, there are 1430 items being sold per day, but in the "old" data, that represented 4B inf changing hands, and in the "new" data, it's 10B inf. But measured across the whole market, the above example wouldn't be "hyperinflation" based on even the FASB criteria, despite the fact that its most expensive items went up in price by a factor of 10.

Now, before anyone jumps on the example, while I tried to make it look something like our market, it's far too simplified for me to be trying to say that's really the ratio in then and now. My # of transaction/day column is probably wildly off-base, and I don't really think we could then/now compare price categories directly the way I did - there would probably just be too much drift of items between categories. It was just meant to illustrate more visually that even huge price increase don't necessarily equate to huge inflation.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people look at our market, tunnel vision on the best shinies and assume the market has gone to hell because those things' prices have shot up like crazy. It probably doesn't really work out like that.

That ... is so not what inflation is about.

The fact that you can raise the price on items doesn't point to inflation period, let alone "hyperinflation".

Don't take that to mean I deny inflation has been going on, though. There has been inflation in the market because the rate at which we can produce inf has been increased. It has been increased multiple times, in multiple ways. Some of them have been changes in how rewards work. Some of them have been changes in balance, making characters more powerful. Some have been changes in availability of stuff to defeat faster. Some have been changes in player demographics towards higher level characters, who produce more than low level characters.

The thing that's going to trend us towards additional inflation is going to be additional changes of this sort. Based on current public knowledge of planned Incarnate stuff, I am currently expecting more character strength increases, so I do think more are coming. Three more years of things like that? I can't picture it. I think most of your post is a bit on the alarmist side.

By the way, I don't "marketeer" (I just sell drops and merit produced goods), and I don't farm, and I have 9 purpled 50s. I just IO'd out one of my oldest characters and I did it for less than 3B inf. I spent some money, I spent some reward merits, and I played the game while I was waiting for stuff to come in. I certainly did not farm the AE to make the money for the IOs I got for him. (I did buy some rare salvage with tickets, though.)

I enjoy mine. I think they have that same rush for me that so many people talk about with Blasters. There's something I really like about being dangerous and fragile at the same time, but with Stalkers I can get that and still have mez protection and some self protection besides raging offense.

I definitely feel their flaws, though.

I do have a particular resentment of what happened to the way Regen works on a Stalker once they increased the AT's base HP without increasing the HP cap. Because it dramatically truncates DP's +HP, one of the "business as usual" powers of the Regen powerset is not allowed to improve the base survival of the character as much as it does for Scrappers, or as much as it did for Stalkers at lower base HP. Obviously raising their base HP improved their survivability overall, Regen included, but that HP cap kept Regen from scaling with the HP increase the way every other Stalker secondary did.

I have no doubt of it. I think he should have asked his ulterior question directly. Asking it the way he did isn't going to fool anyone that matters: the devs read stuff like this, but they aren't going to be convinced, for example, that no one is inviting Stalkers to teams based on thread responses, because they can just go look at the data.

Talking openly and plainly about why we think Stalkers have issues might, in a really optimistic and hopeful world,lead to insights or suggestions the Devs can use to improve the AT. Instead, we've got a hairball made of competing anecdotes, opinions of varying rationality, and earnest discussion of the basic numbers and facts. I really think that the rational discussion piece needs its own thread, away from the subjective stuff that the OP's question set up.

From a story perspective, I understand that. From a game viability perspective I personally discard it completely, because I think the game experience is better for the fact that this happens so often. That the players are asked/allowed to do this is more or less completely glossed over by NPC dialog, and that's sort of bad, but trying to put a lore face on why it happens as much as it does seems to me like it would not be very effective.

Why are you trying to make it obvious, when it already is? Do you see me arguing it?

My earlier posts stands. If you're going to focus on narrow roles, you can make this same argument with other ATs. That's all I said. It's stupid and people do it all the time. It's easier to do it with Stalkers because they and Scrappers share a narrow role. I get it, and I have agreed with that from the start. That doesn't mean I think it's any less dumb to bias against them on that basis, just as it's dumb to do it with other ATs. The fact that there's broader selection criteria that might sway you when asking who to invite with other ATs doesn't change that core contention.

It's not off-topic for the OP, because how often are you going to get a choice between a Scrapper and a Stalker with the same overall build (as close as AT differences allow)?

IMO, what's off-topic is the (sensible) discussion of whether Stalkers underperform, and what if anything can be done about it. The OP didn't ask that, and a fair number of respondents have actually answered what was asked. Mixing the two is making a mess.

I don't know if I am not being clear, or you are being intentionally obtuse.

There are cases where one AT is always better. I need buffs: Defender or Corruptor, the answer is always Defender.

A whole separate layer of stupidity creeps into this debate when we admit that what we're arguing only clearly applies if we assume equivalent powersets. Who's going to deal more damage: a DB/WP Scrapper, or KM/Nin Stalker? MA/Inv Scrapper or Elect/SR Stalker?

Well, what do you expect when you get the horse in question by unfabricating a pile of belts and a bottle of glue?

I was not clear. "The question" here is one of damage - the same question one asks when choosing between a Scrapper and a Stalker.

I contend this is untrue, and I just made a clear example of it. You need damage, and you have a choice of a Scrapper and a Brute. Same thing if you need buffs or debuffs, and you have a choice of a Corruptor or a Defender, or a Defender and a Controller. Those have clear, unambiguous answers: the Scrapper brings more damage, and the Defender brings more debuffs. If you start looking beyond those one dimensional requirements, the different ATs bring differing capabilities that may influence the decision.

I have admitted in two posts prior that the similarities in functional capabilities that matter to most teams between a Scrapper and a Stalker are probably more similar than for any of the other examples, and thus lack these extra dimensions of comparison. I alluded to that in the post in which I made the list you object to. I conceded it before you even responded. Therefore, I don't know why you feel the need to object to it.

So, for example, if that question came down to "Brute vs. Scrapper" that you actually think it would have a meaningful probability to affect the outcome?

I think the answer is that it would not.

Unless I specifically know that (a) the mission goals at hand benefit significantly from adding more AoE damage (b) I do not think I have enough AoE damage (c) I know the Stalker is not one of the ones that can bring AoE damage, and (d) the Scrapper has and will use their AoE damage, I just can't see the difference being meaningful. The fact that I just produced a four point list of conditions I need to meet to care means I am not going to care most of the time even though there are reasons I might care.

Yes, I mentioned that. It doesn't affect my decision, for reasons stated.

I didn't go with any argument. Stalkers underperform Scrappers at tasks which they both go about in mostly the same way. The OP asked which I would choose. My answer has not changed - whichever one asked first. The performance difference is not enough to sway me except in edge cases, and that's going to be true when comparing any pair of AT or powerset selections.

The OP asked a question. It was not "do you think Stalkers underperform Scrappers." It was "given a restricted choice, what would you choose." The question implicitly assumes that everyone who responds here will always choose their answer based on superior performance, no matter what the actual performance gap. Some of us are answering in a way intended to make clear that we would not choose on that basis, or at least not on that basis alone.

We can ask this same kind of loaded question about a bunch of other ATs. What would you choose?

• Tanker or Brute?
• Defender or Corruptor?
• Tanker or Scrapper?
• Brute or Scrapper?
• Defender or Controller
• Blaster or Scrapper?

The simple fact is that, for any given purpose, some ATs are arguably "better" than others. Yes, Scrappers and Stalkers share a basically simple, straightforward job description that makes the comparison of what they're good at simpler than some of those above, and that makes easier to say Stalkers are underperforming. I still wouldn't reject one on that basis. I'm not going to be baited into answering in a way that doesn't reflect what I would do in game, and that's pretty much choose based on role, and not peak performance. If I need damage, everything else being equal, I'll take whichever damage dealer asks first.

If the real point is to find out "do you think Stalkers underperform in their primary role?" then just ask that question.

I know someone in real life who did it, so it does indeed work. He did not get his first character out of Praetorea.

I don't really think anyone reasonable would make it into an either/or situation. That's an artifact of folks taking on the claim that one is better than the other, and because Force Fields (and to be fair, Cold Domination) can't bring both (unless you count being able to take Aid Other).

People have played builds using nothing but pool powers. Anything is viable, if you're willing to accept the performance you get out of it. If your character does what you want, who's to say it's not viable? But the simple truth remains is that when you do something like this, you're not doing everything your character can do. Majicj is trying to defend that by claiming that skipping the FF ally bubbles doesn't deprive anyone of that much. I don't really care what anyone does with their own characters, though I might not want to team with them if they have builds that lack the reasons I would want their character on my team. I do care when they post factually inaccurate information on the forums, though, and try to make it look like good advice.

Clearly no one should bother with Kinetics characters. After all, anyone can get Hasten, we all get inherent Fitness, and everyone can already deal damage.

I guess they can always just heal.

Two words: Heat Loss.

Also: Shutting down regen can be the equivalent of upwards of an extra 150-350 DPS against hard targets, depending on what you're fighting (AV or GM, and then there are special cases like Reichsman).

They're not going to give the same levels of +defense to as many teammates as someone with FF or Cold Domination. And that's to be expected, since they do bring other things to the team. Except in special cases (like Hamidon raids) I value the +defense for the whole team more than the other buffs that an Empath brings.

I contend it's trivial to beat it. Bring a Rad, a Kin, a Cold and 5 damage dealers. For similar performance, sub Dark for the Rad or a FF for the Cold. There's really nothing that can replace a Kin, but turning them into another debuffer would hardly suck.

I don't want to convince anyone that Empathy is "gimp". I'm not a powerset bigot, and I don't turn away Empaths (or much of anything) from teams, and I don't tell other people they shouldn't invite them. I don't contend that "more, faster" is the only or right way to play the game. There are things other than either +defense and +shields that are nice to have, and Empathy does bring some nice examples to the table. My only point is that both the math and practical experience say that if you want to maximize performance in terms of stuff like kills/hour, Empathy wouldn't be on the short list of suggestions. As I mentioned earlier, FF probably wouldn't be specifically, either, but something that can give high +defense to the whole team would be, and FF can fill that role.