Unthing

I did the Cap Strike Force last night. I was ghosting the last mission and I noticed that when I accidentally fell in lava and took damage I became unhidden. I did occasionally fall in the lava and not take damage due to being too quick for the tick times, those times I remained hidden.

I can see the reasoning for becoming unhidden when an enemy hits you and does damage, as they now know you are there, but when you fall in lava, that doesn't sound right. Do other people agree with me?

The only way the lava thing could make sense is if the enemy see disturbances in the lava, in which case it should be when you are in any liquid ( such as the sea ) rather than anything to do with damage.

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Dark Armour : Dark Embrace, Obsidian Shield, Dark Regeneration, Murky Cloud.

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Cloak of Fear and Cloak of Darkness are must haves if your going to do any PvP. You might also want to try Oppressive Gloom, but fears better IMHO.

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That's useful to know. My D/D is not quite high enough level to get OG. I was going to get it rather than Cloak of Fear. I wasn't really concentrating on high level powers though, although my mention of Invinicibility kind of wrecks that.

One important point is that it is vital to know what the must have powers are for the powerset. I don't know about SR, but for the others these are the most vital powers of the set ( IMO ).

Inv: Temp Inv, Unyielding, Invincibility, Dull Pain
Regen : Reconstruction, Quick Recovery, Integration, Dull Pain.
Dark Armour : Dark Embrace, Obsidian Shield, Dark Regeneration, Murky Cloud.

Of the 3 Dark is the most annoying ( sound effects are yicky ) and probably the most end draining. It also has the most fun powers. It has moderate resistances against everything and provides protection against many of the "magic bullet" type tricks used in the later game such as Psi damage and end drain. However it does not provide knockback protection so picking up Acrobatics from the Leaping pool ( and using super jump as your travel power ) is a good idea.

I've not played an Inv Scrapper, however I do play an Inv tank so I imagine it is the same. Against non-slashing/lethal damage you are not that great unless surrounded by enemies.

I would only advise playing regen if you are happy clicking a self-heal power every 30 seconds or so. It is the best one for hit and run tactics and tends to act reasonably well against all enemy types.

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Yea was shame didnt get a badge, but was great fun especially when Davidian owned the elite boss (wont say who it was an spoil it).The av was a bit of a let down but we were a brilant team an wooped butt.

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I was trying to help here. However my first AS got interrupted and my second one missed and so Davidian pretty much soloed him. The horde of minions that our masterminds brought along were clearing out the normal enemies behind us.

The AV was fun with me and Davidian doing a great job of toe to toe'ing him. AS on an AV is nice, I think each hit took about a tenth of his hitpoint off. The use of Placate was essential to getting a workable attack chain.

Well I have it and Herostats does a good job of predicting the crash.

I haven't actually needed to use it in anger yet as my defences are pretty good and I've only done one mission, duoing in a Nemesis vs Devouring Earth portal mission.

I'm tempted to put the recharge in just for large teams, soloing I do enough scrapping for recharge not to be a problem. When in large teams I tend to mainly use AS.

Currently with DOs I have slotted it 4 Dam 2 ACC.

With SOs I will probably slot it 3x Dam, 2x Acc and then probably a recharge.

It really depends on how you play and how much you use it. It doesn't really recharge that slowly anyway.

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Dont worry unthing if i can get high enought in time i dive in the way of the av an take the hits for u oh hold on thats not very villanous.

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No you won't you'll just be seeing red and saying SMASH!!!!!

Anyway aren't MM pets meant to die.. I mean tank for us?

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I think the thing with taking on AVs is for every MM to use the 'go to' command to spread their pets out, so theres no chance of them all gettting killed by a nasty AOE attack.

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However any AV we meet will not be as nasty as the level 40+ AVs. It will be more like Dr V or the ( non-Psychic ) clockwork king.

If I remember correctly the Clockwork King on the Synapse TF was mostly taken out by an Inv tank ( the now retired Gargantuman IIRC ), my blaster Cryostrike, and someone else, probably a controller, with the other members of the 8 man team appearing halfway through the combat.

So the AV may not have a nasty AoE.

Personally I was burbling about the tactics a stalker should use against an AV. I was thinking AS and then placate to avoid the unavoidable aggro.

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Most definately get this power.

Fill your team mates with awe as you shout "Fall back! I'll contain these mobs as much as I can." *click* wade into a 20 strong mob of enemies.

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I do that anyway. Isn't that what tanks are for?

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Great for PvP and missions. Gives you the chance to become virtually almost unstoppable (except to Psi, where you turn into a wet pansy).

Provide fantastic stamina and health regenration, status protection and defense. Thus meaning you can drop all other toggles, so when it does eventually run out, you can pop in a couple CaBs and turn on your toggles again.

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I think it takes me around 10-15 seconds to get all my toggles on. I have 6.

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Get it at lvl32 if possible so you can use it in Warburg PvP. An uber power to rival (if not best) Regen's legendary MoG.

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It's a bit late to get it at lvl 32 as I'm level 44, but I reckon it isn't going to be great at PvP, in my limited experience Tanks are pretty much ignored anyway due to their lack of damage and hard to killness, except to be chain mezzed by controllers for a laugh. For a scrapper it is probably a great power as they do tons of damage.

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sure might be possible, but then you have to tell me: No there is absolutley no need to take Stamina. That would free up the slots and powers i need to get the remaining two powers. Otherwise this is the tradeoff i did. No powers to spare realy unless stamina is not needed. anyway with some end redux SOs i might try to not get Stamina, but that will be an issue later on for a respec i guess.

taking the autopowers in would mean ive taken every single Power from my secondary. I realy dislike that, but guess thats SR ;(

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I made a SR in beta. He was fine stamina wise up to about 10. Then I got the 10 level bonus and didn't pick stamina. With the attacks I chose he wasn't playable. He only had focussed fighting and hide as toggles too.

For my Spines/Regen scrapper I decided to get stamina, I have minor endurance problems, endurance tends to creep down when soloing, if I need to scrap lots I run out. This is with one toggle and reconstruction as a click heal.

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I've seen this as well. I think that the server is processing the sequence: Mob Attack/Mob Placated/Mob damage takes effect (which then unhides you). It's a damned nuisance.

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I suspect that's what's happening. You need to watch what's going on and time your Placate accordingly - a bit like using Snipe in combat when soloing a Blaster.

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Unfortunately some attacks seem to have (visible) animation times that are less than placate + reaction time. Maybe I should just wait for the placatee to hit me first.

Bridger, please can you confirm whether this is
a) Working as intended, the hide effect from placate can be interrupted by good timing on the placatee's side.
b) A unsolvable server/client timing issue or
c) A bug.

I think this doesn't affect the placate effect of placate, only the quick hide.

It's nice to see a nice number of Masterminds to provide cannon fodder so I don't have to scrap ( even though I can ) and with Alathar's dark debuffs and hopefully some nice holds we should be cruising.

I know myself and Alathar can take out an Elite Boss in pretty short order so as a team we should be okay. I'm not sure how to deal with AVs though. I suspect running away to rehide lots will be important.

I suspect I should try to get up to level 19 if possible before the strike force, I don't think that should be too hard.

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EDIT: Just to clarify is this 6pm or 9pm?

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He's evidently plotting something...

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If I'm plotting something there is only ever one result....

Me ME Me me !

Pick Me!

Level 18 Stalker ( or is it 19 ) reporting for duty.

EDIT: Just to clarify is this 6pm or 9pm?

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hate to be a mean mean person, but i really think it a dangerous power to take, yes it is very handy but only for short period, it it wares off in the middle of fight you are in real danger if faceplanting, the bonus is not justifed by the penalty, have seen it kill way more people than it has helped,

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Generally I am in the steady state camp of tankers. The reason I haven't taken Unstoppable until ( possibly ) level 44 is for the exact reasons you say. In my opinion a tank should aspire to be able sit in a group of enemies fighting away and whittling them down even if the rest of the team has to retreat because they aren't winning. Unstoppable does not help you do that. I have MoG on my scrapper and it fits really well, as a scrapper can always run off when the crash happens. If the tanker does that ( and somehow manages to lose aggro ) you can end up with a team wipe.

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also, 7% def is totally difrent to 12% res, and the autos are ment to act as a base to the toggles, (unyeding accually gives the most of the res to damage types) ehich is why they have no idurance costs.

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The difference between 16% ( unyielding ) and 28% ( unyielding + the passive ) is a reduction in damage by 15%.
The difference between 7% defence ( unyielding, tough hide and combat jumping ) and 14% defence ( + weave ) is a reduction in damage by 16%.

Admittedly this is against even minions, against bosses/lt and higher levels the defence is less effective, however it stacks better with invincibility which is where most of my damage mitgation comes from anyway ( and always will ). In fact against an archvillain I can expect at least an additional 4% and I tend to take lucks with me too, which also stack well with weave.

Also weave has some protection against Psi, due to providing ranged defence, which none of my other powers do.

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but int he end you do have to make the decison about waht to take. but in my opion unstoopable is a mistake for a tanker, as if your stuck at the front of a medium sized group when it falls, you are toast.

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I agree. My main reason for taking it would be in a toggle drop situation ( sappers ), I have no other defence against them. It seems a shame to take a power just because of one enemy by I expect it will be invaluable against Rularuu too.

I generally haven't had problems with enemies that use lots of Elements/Energies except Fir Bolgs and Praetorian Blue Clockwork. Fir Bolg I've outlevelled and Blue clockwork are nasty because of the DEF debuffs. Circle of Thorns behemoths and that kind of enemy never really gave me any problems.

There really isn't any point in a tanker slotting 3 resists in Unstoppable as with a base of 70% 1 damage resistance gives you 84% resistance and 2 give you 98% resistance, which is over the 90% cap. If you have the passives too, slotting 1 damage resistance is all you need as they provide 12 extra resistance. Of course 3 recharge is a given.

The reason I didn't get the passives is because I went for the fighting pool instead. Tough is better than RPD ( except for endurance costs ) and Weave gives almost 7 defence which IMO is better than the 12 resistance I get from the RE powers. If I had room I would get them all. The fighting pool does come at a heavy cost in endurance, and therefore slots to reduce that endurance cost. However the RE powers will certainly help more in most AV fights than Weave. Weave works best when stacking with Invincibility.

Since everyone agrees I guess I'll be getting unstoppable then and slotting it 2 Dam res and 3 recharge so it caps by itself ( I don't have any of the passives ). This was my instinct too.

I have managed to mostly avoid both Malta and Carnies so far in my 40s and that was without declining other peoples missions. I have done a couple of Malta missions solo, but dealing with a Sapper and a couple of others is completely risk free and totally different to dealing with a spawn of 15 enemies containing 2 sappers.

So far the nastiest enemies I've met are Ruraluu, who can pierce all my defences due to the number of defence debuffs they have.

I just hit 44 with Golden Golem after an excellent I6 rebuild that I'm really happy with. I was wondering what to get next. The options I am considering are are:-

Unstoppable, Laser Beam Eyes, One of the passive resists from the Inv Primary, probably Resist Energies.

Unstoppable is probably the favorite at the moment as it provides undroppable defences and status resists, despite having a crash ( which I really dislike the idea of ). How do other people cope with Unstoppable? I believe it may be useful against enemies like malta, because of the sappers.

The passive resists would improve my ability to deal with other damage tyes, especially in AV fights, but usually I'm pretty well prepared for them ( with Lucks etc ) so I don't consider that to important.

Laser Beam eyes sounds reasonably fun.

The only thing that you might need to think about is whether you will be able to run all your toggles if exemped to levels 20-23 before stamina.

Also I'm not sure but would Healing Flames and Consume possibly be of use earlier in the build. Unfortunately I can't see space for them without slipping Tough, Weave or Acrobatics.

I would advise using DrRocks new shiny AT comparison tool ( in Player Guides ) to work out which powers have most effect on your survival.

REGEN
Advantages:
1. Can minimise power choices initially by only the most effective powers, Reconstruction and Integration initially. Stalker builds are tight.
2. Only two toggles including hide = low endurance usage.
3. Probably has best overall damage mitigation of the stalker sets.
4. Does not care about typed or positional damage.

Disadvantages:
1. Can be quite slot heavy as both Recon and possibly Dull Pain need
2. Can suffer against mezzing/debuffing enemies due to status effects, as stuff usually hits.
3. Does not benefit from healing as much as other defensive powersets ( due to the time window when healing is beneficial being small, ie just before you die ).



SR ( not as thorough as I don't play a SR )
Advantages:
1. Can rehide in combat when you have aggro, if you are lucky, due to defence.
2. Status protection is a clicky and so can't be dropped.
3. Has Quickness to increase recharge rate on all attacks ( by 0.2, a +3 DO ).
4. Relatively resitant to stacking mez/debuffs as they have to hit first.

Disadvantages:
1. Has many powers to choose, some combinations are essential due to range vs melee.
2. Has many toggles and so endurance can be a pain.
3. Surceptible to enemies having a 'lucky streak'


For a scrapper I would go with regen, for a stalker I would have probably gone for SR if it wasn't for the concept thingy. However going for a regen meant I can get stamina, whereas I couldn't fit it into a SR build.

I ran a couple of missions last night. I was using my standard tactic of AS the first member of each group, scrapping the rest until the last and then Placating and use AS on the last.

However I noticed that with one enemy sometimes they could make me unhidden if they attacked at the same time I used placate. I would end up not getting a critical on the AS. This seems wrong to me. Have other people seen this?

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lol he's been back for days

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The hero Golden Golden is back, Unthing the forumite never left.

Previously he only surfaced in Paragon to transfer influence to Cryostrike.

I guess I can't give up the tanking, I lasted a week of playing a stalker and a blaster after giving up GG in dispair with the thought of respeccing him. Lets hope that Golden Golem survives for longer than the tank I respecced when I5 was released, Bladestone, I think I played him for one session.

I have made no compromises with against the soloability of GG so hopefully he should be fine, I ran him on my Fake Nemesis hunting circuit this morning in PI ( dodging invites from Dreck farmers ) and he appeared to play exactly the same. I guess attacks at 75-85% effectiveness really don't make that much difference to a tank and I certainly didn't go anywhere near leaving my safety threshold.

Replying to myself, how sad.

After a bit of number crunching and some really useful help from DrRock I have come up with a new build for Golden Golem!

He will be back tonight when I test it out, looks like I might be okay, not up to I5 goodness but as close as I could get. It's a sad world when an Inv Tanker feels he has to take the fighting pool but it was the only way that I get to keep Combat Jumping.

So much for not being arsed to do a respec!

Lets hope some rangers are on tonight.

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You're going to need a fair dose of perception enhancers to see through that, though it is supposedly possible.

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Focussed Accuracy plus Cloak of Darkness will make "Recluses Suspiciously Redecorated Atlas" a hellhole for Stalkers. Nothing can hide from me at the moment, I doubt they will be able to eather.

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Make sure some people on your team have Tactics too just to be excessive.

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I only team with Scrappers nowadays, and our tactics consist of "Hit it until it stops twitching, then nuke it.".

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Sounds like a valid ( and tried and tested ) tactic to me.

Thinking about it, as Focussed Accuracy is an epic, doesn't that mean that in the PvP zones you get exemped so you can't use it?

My scrapper is getting tactics so all the rest of the team knows he is going to impale everything with spines. Also it means he only needs one ACC in each power ( rather than the 2 he had before ). This leaves the epic free for something more fun.