b_rod

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How is getting hit by an AS that started at melee range but did its damage at 200 yards away any different from getting hit by a Total Focus that started at melee range but did its damage from 200 yards away, as far as 'realism' is concerned?

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Bingo.

I can TP over 100yrds away before a TF lands. Still getting nailed for the full damage though. Quick reflexes or not, I'm not rewarded for TP'ing out of there before I see the big attack land.

Everyone is playing in a click based game. For most powers that means, as long as you satisfy the initial range requirement, once you click that button, the power will execute and land (barring a miss from acc). There's no real world properties about anything there. People would do best to just ignore real life concepts, because thats just not the way the game works.

As for AS, it follows that same rule. Get in range, click button, land attack. HOWEVER, since it does unusually large amounts of damage, it pays for it by having several caveats attached to its activation. Those additional requirements being: not being interrupted, two LoS check (one beginning one at end), and having to be in hidden status.

Considering the way other powers work in this game, that seems pretty fair to me.

Well, I must say, my initial response to the dark/dark sets are kinda worrisome. As it looks now, there could be some major swings in the effectiveness of these sets.

I worry about the balance of these sets. It seems like the right/wrong power addition/removal could send these stalkers into a delicate position.

On one side, consider that they leave the +stealth toggle in there. You have a stalker who could potentially reach the -perception cap on their own. The mere possibility of this, I'm sure, has plenty in PvP forum posters blowing holes in their underpants.

On the other side, a dark melee set left partially alone, save the switch of AS and placate in there, could be pretty gimped in PvE.

Obviously, there will have to be some changes in this set to bring it anywhere near being an effective stalker set. I'm just nervous about the way these changes will tip our already questioned balance of being great at PvP but "just ok" in PvE.

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Allow me to point you to this thread I started a couple of days ago:
You click here.

There seems to be some debate as to whether they're working or broken in PvP. I don't think there's any debate about their PvE usefulness, but I am yet to experience anything other than frustration with using them in PvP. Teleporting someone into them only to have them instantly run out of them seems a little...odd.

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As KOS noted, they seem to not be working very well. I'm used to Caltrops on my /Dev blaster, and I'm certainly getting different results. Castle told me the sets all point to the same Caltrops power, but it really appears as if this is either untrue in some way or that the code to fix Caltrops in PvP (which came I think in I4) is somehow separate from the Caltrops power itself and so we've received the old broken version, anyhow.

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Yep. Exactly the same as Traps or Devices Caltrops powers. There ARE limitations to Caltrops -- anyone above them (jumping, flying, doing cartwheels) won't be slowed by them. It is also possible in certain cicumstances for a super speed character to run into and out of the area of effect before the Caltrops power can effect them. That limitation is the same on Tar Patch, Ice Patch and other similar persistent area powers.

To sum up, Caltrops can be a very powerful tool in PvE and PvP, but in PvP players have quite a few 'counters' to the effect. It is not meant to be an "I Win" button.

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This kinda doesn't do it for me _Castle_. I had a very eyebrow raising experience the other day that kinda points the other way.

I used /Nin caltrops. I tp'd a blaster right onto them and immediately used air superiority. Now I got the full knockdown onto that caltrop pacth. I'd say the blaster spend about a total of 3-4 seconds on top of that patch. When he got up, he immediately turned on SS and zipped right out of the caltrops at full speed (and I have a slow enhancement to boot).

Please explain.

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In PvE they have some good and some bad. The bad is that they draw aggro on you, even if you are hidden.

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While they will draw aggro onto you if you are in the mobs line of sight, I have often found that the mob AI goes kinda nuts if you break LoS and go hidden.

They will yo-yo back and forth out of the caltops 3 or 4 times, then run as fast as they can - usually away from you. They'll lose interest, you'll lose the aggro.

Rinse and repeat.

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This is kinda what i was talking about in my next paragraph. You can run around a corner with caltrops on and they tend not to pursue.

In PvE they have some good and some bad. The bad is that they draw aggro on you, even if you are hidden. So they can basically unhide you (as far as aggro goes). The good part is, that most enemies will be too busy trying to run out of the caltrops to attack you. So you can still get off your crit or AS in most occasions.

I use it on teams as a fall back point and to protect other squishies from melee. Solo, I find it's good to use after an initial AS on a boss. I BU+AS+strong melee, then if that doesn't kill him, throw caltrops. He'll try to run out of the caltrops instead of retaliate from the immense hurtin' you just put on him. This gives you time to placate and AS/strong crit him again. Point is, it can buy you time before you have to take a hit, or can downright stop you from taking a hit.

One more PvE use is that it will protect you in bottleneck and small corner situations. I you throw caltrops on a small corner and run around it, the mobs will not pursue you through and you can regain hide and do whatever. I use this technique in the vault to solo heist missions with the ambushes. It allows me to fight one mob at a time instead of dealing with the whole ambush.

As for PvP, I'd have to say its actually very good contrary to what some are saying. Of course, you need a few complimentary powers to make it worthwhile though.

I find that TP foe and Air Sup. with caltrops are very mean indeed. It basically allows you to get off your whole attack chain on flyers and SJ'ers without any retribution.

Flyers (after getting hit with air sup.) and SJ'ers will have to sit there and try to slowly get out while you placate and AS them. SS'ers can get away fairly easy, but I can still get in the AS if I knock them down first with air sup.

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[*]People just don't like to lose, and when they "fix" one shots, we'll stil hear complaints about the next best way to gank


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I've tried to bring this up in numerous threads a bunch of times, but people just want their flamefest.

What is the difference between getting one shotted and getting ALMOST one shotted, THEN almost instantly two-shotted?

So you can take away my one shot from my snipe or AS. But the second attack I have que'd up (and its going to be my second biggest alpha), WILL certainly kill you unless you have the reflexes of a cat and the speed of a mongoose (lil Ace Ventura in there).

Now, I guess we can go through and eliminate all the possilbe one shot scenarios/powers. But ton of people will still be able to two shot you just as fast, and in most instances without reaction time.

I'd like to just ask one question. This is for the event that a one shot kill is eliminated.

A player is engaged in a fight, takes a hit of damage and is at 95% full health. If that player is AS'd/sniped/trip mined, and instantly dies, is that still a one shot?

By what seems to be the dev. definition, any instance in which a player can not react/defend themselve from insta-death, is a one shot.

Where do we draw the line here? Should a player who is at 15% and hit by a hidden stalker with a BU+AS not die?

Maybe there is a point behind any AT at FULL health not being able to be one shotted. But the player who is at 75% health (could be from falling off a building, etc) and got hit with a BU+AIM+snipe and died instantly, still had zero chance to react to that attack.

Would people want to get rid of this also?

At what point is it "ok" to one shot (by dev definition) somone?

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Snipes are already governed by Line of Sight so they're not as bad.

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This applies to AS as well. If you jump behind around the corner of a building, no AS.

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No [censored] Sherlock. But here's the thing... AS is a melee attack. Teleporting or Leaping 50 yards away while it's still interruptable, but being hit because there's still a line of Sight is the kind of crap you'd expect in magical fairies and hobbits and sharks with friggin lasers on their heads fantasy Land... It has no place in a game like this that is highly twitch based and goverened by Ragdoll Physics. ...Do you have any idea of the full collision detection potential that Ragdoll and CoH's superior AI programming could accomplish??? We're talking 9th Wonder of the World here. We should expect better. Infact combined with Placate, long-range AS is the biggest "I Win" Button any AT has ever had in PvP, beating out I4's Perma-Ellude Scrappers and Perma-Phaseshifters.

Infact#2, I already passed this issue onto Statesman and he in turn went through the trouble to reply back and tell me he was sending it to Castle. It doesn't seem like an issue that 'would make the engineers' heads explode' so no one here is to say it's "working as intended" or "going to stay that way" until the Devs get back to us on it. Capiche? (Not directed at BRod, but at everyone else who argues just for the sake of arguing)

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What are you suggesting here? Are you saying that in order to get off an AS, the target should have to stand still for 4 seconds?

I was merely stating that the same means of escaping an activated AS/snipe are the same. It doesn't matter if you are in melee range. You can get around the building 5 yards aways, AS will miss.

From my experience, I get a HELL of a lot less LOS interruptions on my sniping blasters. I don't see where the inconsistency is.

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Snipes are already governed by Line of Sight so they're not as bad.

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This applies to AS as well. If you jump behind around the corner of a building, no AS.

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Even if they were to just add a short "winding down" period of no more than one second at the end of a snipe or AS (or fixed how suppression doesn't work for them), then things would be fine.

It would sort of exclude them from normal attack chains, but those powers are rarely part of them anyway. I use my snipe in the middle of a battle all the time, but that's just me

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Again, another good idea. I'm sure you'll get some arguments on how leaving a player totally non-offensive for a brief time is a death sentence (especially for squishies).

Again though, there is a definition problem with one shotting. If you have a team of stalkers pulling AS's simultaneously, it really doesn't matter who the target is, they are going down, and FAST. No chance for retaliation there. Same is true of a few sniping blasters.

So is the issue really one shotting or dieing quickly without the chance for retaliatory action? It seems like the latter is really the issue being complained about. In all reality, I don't think there is any way, nor should there be, any way to counter good team work.

I just hope people just think about what it is that is really upsetting them. If you are upset about going down fast while you were fighting another target, that was just good teamwork on your opponents side.

I know I get railed sometimes by a good duo without being able to take any action. It's just a part of the game. Like I said before, there are ways around it though.

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As long ast the opponent has some chance to do something other than die, then things are peachy. They don't need very long, maybe a second if not less, but at least having the chance to either put up some form of retaliation or evasion would be great.

We're not saying that Stalkers should always lose, we just want a chance to fight back.

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This is a valid argument. But from experience playing both a blaster and a stalker in PvP, it would be just as easy to two shot people.

What I'm trying to say, is that 2 shotting is pretty much just as easy for any AT that can 1 shot.

Consider this:
I'm a stalker facing a scrapper - I can't one shot a scrapper without some serious buffage, so - I BU+AS+strong follow up melee. If I have this que'd up, that scrapper will die IF he doesn't get away from my second melee attack by effectively running. So if all goes right, I've killed my scrapper in 2 shots and in about 2 seconds after my initial attack.

I'm a blaster going against a scrapper - I can't one shot without serious buffage, so - BU+AIM+snipe+strong range attack. If i have this que'd up, the scrapper will die in two hits EVEN IF HE RUNS (in most cases because its very hard to escape the blaster range in the 1 second it take to fire off the 2nd attack). So, I've killed my scrapper in the same amount of time.

Point is, where is the line drawn on what is fair/fun? If we eliminate one shotting, two shotting is really just as easy for some AT's. Trust me, its how I kill beefier AT's. So do we get rid of two shotting too?

At some point everyone just has to play the hand thats out there. There are ways around EVERYTHING out there, even getting one shot.

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Are we talking about PvP here or did you just try and solo Requiem at level 10?

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Actually it doesn't matter. Barring the situation of tackling stuff that is way beyond your level, getting one-shotted by anything is equivalent to the game randomly deciding it is time for you to die. Even getting 95% swatted isn't fun, since usually that other 5% has already been queued by another critter before you know what happened. And not being afforded an opportunity at all to respond isn't challenging in the sense that an adventure game is fun to play, it is challenging in the sense that draws people to Roulette or slot-machines.

So it really doesn't matter if what one-swatted you was a stalker, AV, nasty boss, or even a lucky minion. It sucks regardless of how it happens. Relying on random insta-death (from the dieing player's perspective) isn't challenging, it is a design crutch. It might have been fun back in the SNES days but this isn't Super Mario.

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Well said. Unfortunately, little joe with his uber-stalker (who jumped ship from Device blaster/regen scrapper/tanker-land) can't understand this

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So where exactly does it get "fun" again?

Ok, so it's not fun to get one-shotted --> nerf stalkers and blasters

It's also not fun to get two-shotted from a que'd up sequence --> nerf stalker, blasters, scrappers, brutes

Is it fun to get three shotted by another sequence?

Why must certain AT's be nerfed away from their strengths to accomodate other AT's weaknesses?

If I'm a squishy, I don't cry nerf when an offensive juggernaut crushes me. I overstepped my limitations.

If I'm an offensive juggernaut, I don't cry nerf when a squishy mez's me.

You have to live with weaknesses you have. Not bring everyone down because of your own weakness.

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I fail to see how it's fair to stand right next to someone running 2 +perception powers, and not have them being able to see you.

I know my stalker doesn't need that kind of advantage to do quite well in pvp.

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I think you may have misinterpreted. 2 +perception powers still sees hide+stealth.

The change was that IR goggles + tactics does not equal +2 perception. They don't stack anymore. Not sure if it stacks with other +perception powers (targeting drone).

It looks as if the devs wanted the IR goggles to be used by people who dont usually get +perception powers in their power sets. At least thats my interpretation of the patch.

Maybe they didn't like the idea of 1 +perception power + temp power canceling out 2 -perception powers.

Yep. I just read something similar in the test forum. This is good news for stalkers. But prepare for the whining [censored]-fest that is sure to follow.

Where are you getting this AS nerf from?

I didn't notice a difference last night on live. A stealth nerf like that would REALLY piss people off.

Most status effects on targets will give you a chance to crit out of hide. Its actually our inherent power. Read the assassination info for the exact explaination.

I'm not sure what power was placing the status on the foes you were crit'ing, but the status crit was what you were seeing.

Teaming with a dominator will make this effect much more noticable.

Most status effects on targets will give you a chance to crit out of hide. Its actually our inherent power. Read the assassination info for the exact explaination.

I'm not sure what power was placing the status on the foes you were crit'ing, but the status crit was what you were seeing.

Teaming with a dominator will make this effect much more noticable.

Most status effects on targets will give you a chance to crit out of hide. Its actually our inherent power. Read the assassination info for the exact explaination.

I'm not sure what power was placing the status on the foes you were crit'ing, but the status crit was what you were seeing.

Teaming with a dominator will make this effect much more noticable.

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It's quite a trick to land an AS on a target Superjumping through the zone though. Trying to attack someone while they're traveling to their destination (and feel "safe") seems fairly difficult to me.

Of course if you find someone who likes to stop and enjoy the scenery regularly, I suppose you could be in luck, but their info window isn't going to tell you that.

It seems to me that most people in PvP zones never ever stop moving unless their reading stuff from their contact, rezzing from the hospital, or engaged in battle (and sometimes not even then).

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On the contrary, just as most of us stalkers do, heroes will scope a situation before charging in. If your in the actual battle already, you won't really notice this until they charge on in. They like to pick their spot just as much as we do (they will if they are smart anyway). When they're picking their spot, I'm lining up the AS.

Are you suggesting that the only way to stalk a hero is by attacking them in their base? Everyone has travel powers on all the time. If attacking someone with a travel power was that hard, we'd never get kills. Just pick the right spot. It's not that hard.

Everyone relax. The bots/drones are just going to get an AoE tactics style perception buff. Meaning, if you are standing near a drone, you will be able to see better than if you are out in the battle field.

All this is going to do is make base camping harder for those who like to hide out in the base. Personally, hiding out in the base isn't such a good idea anyway. You don't want to be popping out of hide/stealth in the middle of a base with all the drones and NPCs to give you debt.

Here's a good technique i've been using even without added drone perception:
Camp in the base away from anything that could get you debt if you are seen, but still within visual range of a spawn point. When a player spawns, take a look at his powers (which is kinda dumb that we can do that, but thats a different thread) and analyze if you want to take him on. DON'T attack him in the base. STALK them into the battlefield. Most people are expecting to get attacked either right at the base, or at a battle point. Give them a minute to get away from the debt givers and let them feel safe. Then attack.

This lets you "camp" in that you're doing your research on an opponent. But you're engaging in a more honorable position.

Back to the point of the thread though, nothing is changing out on the battlefield. The patch just makes base camping a bit more dangerous. Use camping as a scouting technique and you should all still be fine.