luudo_EU

I've run a thugs/ff mastermind up to mid 30s.

All the defence buffs available in the two sets seem to make the thugs fairly invulnerable in pve.

On large teams I seem to be constantly busy, actively controlling the minions whilst trying to keep minions and team-mates bubbled. It's not a particularly exciting busy though, and direct intervention with the good guys is limited to force bolt.

Just checked: Bantamweight is L12-13

bantamweight - yes please!

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Do not flame the decision of the organisers

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b)use previous S4 setup which will give chance to both sides to participate since like i mention level 24 or 32 will work nicely for those wanting to particpate and have laughs and can level easily toons needed like in previous S4 and level 50 the more dedicated PvPers.

Noone is answering my question why not use scheme b which worked perfect for previous event.

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Wasn't Bantamweight in S4 only up to level 12? I'm seem to remember that there were no travel powers involved (although that could have been just a weird choice by me).

The low level pvp in S4 last time was a lot of fun, and a completely different fight due to lack of movement.

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Firstly Tanker outcry at low damage output prompted the devs to give Tankers a blanket 10% damage increase in the first place and further down the line, added rage to SS because without it, SS underperforms.

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Do you want to check your facts?

I've been playing a /ss tanker since just after I1. My launch pack instruction booklet lists rage as a super strength power, which indicates that it's been in the set an awful long time (as books take a few months to be proof read and printed generally).

You're right about tankers complaining about lack of damage, but rage wasn't introduced because of this.

I vaguely remember back to the days when rage's drop off could be negated by running perma-rage. I seem to remember the devs not liking this and changing things so that when rage dropped, everything dropped and lots of super strength tanks died. After some shouting by the surviving tankers, the compromise of today's rage penalty was arrived at. Most super strength tanks thought they'd got off lightly as it meant that when they were solo or on small teams that needed extra damage they could use rage with not too great a risk, but when on bigger teams where the risk might be greater they found they didn't use rage too often.

As you can probably guess, I can live with today's penalty as I've seen worse.

I've played my D3 long enough now that I've stopped letting it bother me when other players seem to be actively working against me (Darkest Night anchor is priority target, Rain of Fire immediately after Fearsome Stare, energy blasters in general). I just find another way of playing that's less frustrating for me (if they're going to kill the Darkest Night anchor straight away, I won't bother using it etc.)

What does confuse me though is blasters who can't wait an extra second for Tar Patch to be laid down before exploding.

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I was thinking of a claws/energy stalker, moves by teleport. Does creative things with knockback to protect the team. Heavy end drain effects to protect the team. Possibly throw in a leadership. Do I need stamina (Claws end light, Energy armour some ways of mitigating end drain).

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Energy is quite a nice secondary!

Regarding your ideas about using energy drain as a soft control method. Yes this can work, my stalker does it all the time. However I find that it works really well when I'm soloing and I can manage aggro and mob behaviour to ensure that I drain every mob in the group; but on a team where mobs are quite often dragged this way and that by other team members I find it less successful. This is with the power six slotted (3 recharges, 3 end mods)

Using the energy drain to run a stamina-less stalker? Yes, very possible solo but in teams a little harder (the rest of the team don't wait that extra second for energy drain to recycle before offing the last nearly dead good guy). I also found going stamina-less a non starter for PvP (although you've stated that this is a pvp toon, you might find you want to pop into a zone every so often. Also going stamina-less with teleport was frustrating in big zones. With enough slots (from memory 4) devoted to range and end recs you can travel across largeer zones (e.g. Nerva) but when you get there you need a rest.

I too toyed with the idea of using repel actively, but never really managed to make it work for me. The only real use I managed to get out of it was keeping elite bosses on their backsides when soloing.

For a scrapping style stalker EA can work well. I found that with the shields 3 slotted for defence it protected me for long enough to scrap through groups of 5/6 or so mobs solo (on the hardest difficulty). For bigger groups being defence based means that probability takes its toll.

Overload is a fantastic power, with it emergency tanking becomes possible.

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In a biggish PvE team a Stalker will generally concentrate on single targets. Stalkers are NOT made for AoE.

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Depends on the team really. When teaming within my villain group (where team make up tends to be biased towards corruptors and dominators) I often find that there are times where my most useful attack is throw spines. If I go with single target attacks then most of the spawn is dead by the time I've completed two attacks (or before I've completed one attack if I try for assassin strike). Built Up & buffed Throw Spines into a group takes a large amount of the spawn to scourge range. Critical only has a 50% chance for Throw Spines? On average half the mob dead in the first seconds of a fight? Works for me!

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Placate also only works on one target. If you have aggro from more than one target your psuedo-hide will likely be broken by incoming damage before you can attack, so you will lose any Critical damage bonus.

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In the team described above, I only really get chance to use placate on Heroes or Arch Villains. Everything else is dead (not shooting you) or held (not shooting you). If it's not dead but held, and there are enough of them in a group I'll try to use AoE attacks as if I've got a small chance of critting a held subject, it's more likely I'll get a crit if I hit more of them at once. Admittedly, I could placate or wait for hide to come back to get a 100% crit but if I do I find that I then don't need the crit.

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To be honest the better Stalkers I've seen so far will "Spike" in and out of melee range, picking off one mob at a time from the group.

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To be honest, the better stalkers I've seen make full use of their abilities and adapt their game for the team they're in, or the enemies they're facing. They may spike in and out in some fights, but in others they may choose to scrap as it keeps aggro off other teammates.

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Whilst Assassin's Strike is by far their most damaging attack, it's not necessary to run and rehide after every attack; especially if you use placate effectively and do not rely only on Assassin's Strike. Stalkers CAN be built to 'scrap', however the longer a Stalker remains unhidden in melee range scrapping with the enemy the worse their overall damage output will be... they simply become lackluster when you take away their Critical hits: they lack a Scrapper's criticals, base damage and hitpoints.

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I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree with you on this one, be interesting to see a comparison of damage output.

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I have been told that as I get into higher levels it will become harder to solo well with her but so far its pretty darn good.

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You've been mis-informed then. At 42 my D3 is quite capable of soloing on invincible. This week he's managed to solo the single spawned Envoy of Shadows arch-villain with the help of a warwolf.

In teams he feels godlike, stopping whole spawns (as long as they're not Nemesis) in their tracks, upping the teams damage output considerably and reducing bosses and Arch-villains to annoyances rather than dangers.

However as lots of his opening moves are AoE based (tar-patch, fearsome stare, darkest night), if he gets it wrong, it goes wrong with style.

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Fearsome Gaze
People cower a bit, until I hit them. Then they fight and cower a bit more. I haven't slotted it yet. To say I'm dissapointed in this skill would be an understatement. Maybe for another charater.


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Mystic, it's your game and your villain, do what you like with it as long as you're having fun!

I'm making this reply to try to explain how Fearsome Stare works as from your paragraph above it occurs to me that you might not have had a chance to find all the wrinkles in the power, and the instruction book is not very useful in it's description (in general).

I'm taking my experience from a defender's point of view so some of the finer details about the mastermind power might be a little off...

It's a long, fairly wide cone attack. This means that it's pretty easy to catch every mob in a spawn with it.

It causes fear in the mobs it hits (generally only minions and lieutenants - bosses need two applications).

Fear causes the mobs to quake in terror and hide behind their hands.

They will only stop quaking in terror when the power runs out, or someone hits them. If they're quaking in terror they won't be attacking you.

If they are hit by something they have a small opportunity to either attack you back or try to run away. Then they will start quaking in terror again.

In addition to this quaking in terror there is also a to hit debuff (quite a good one) on every mob that is terrorised and bosses that have been hit but are not quaking. This means that if they do try to attack you or your thugs then there is a bigger chance of them missing.

With the right slotting at later levels you can effectively make terror permanent. You can also increase the to hit debuff.

All this means that if you use Fearsome Stare as your first attack you can stop almost every mob attacking you. If you then control your thugs to all attack the same mob at the same time then you can work your way through the whole mob without being in any danger.

Fearsome Stare is the best power in the Dark Miasma set for stopping damage to you or your team if used right. If used wrong then it doesn't seem to do much.

If you don't think it's right for your Thugs mastermind concept make sure you give it a try on your Necro mastermind.

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Shadow Fall (minor +res and +stealth)

[/ QUOTE ]Surely you mean Minor +def, good +res and +stealth? The +res is 20% unslotted, by no means minor, especially since it also resists psi.

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But only +res to energy, negative energy and psi (although the psi will make you popular at higher levels)

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Ninjitsu wins over Energy in my book as I'm not a fan of resistance for a melee AT that has a low HP.

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Energy is location based defence, just like SR or ninjitsu, it only has an auto res power vs energy.

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Energy is a damage type based defence, not like SR or ninjitsu.

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Fear is great, but isnt equal to a full blown hold. Hit em with an AoE and they all get a chance to pummel you back.

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Fearsome Stare does have a to hit debuff in it. Stacking to hit debuffs from the set means that it quite often doesn't matter if they try to pummel you back. Combining Fearsome Stare, Tar Patch, Tentacles & Nightfall allows my D3 to solo groups of 6-10 even level mobs with AOE attacks without fear of being hit.

I thought hide had pretty good defence against AoE attacks whilst hidden, but that once revealed the defense against AoE dropped into single figures.

I think it's designed that way to give you a chance of staying hidden if there's lots of AoEs going off in the area but not to actually give you any real defence.

I find it possible to run the 3 shields with only Energy Drain. I find repulse very endurance heavy and tend to use it only at specific moments. As the endurance cost is based on number of mobs affected, the use you have in mind might be a little too end heavy.

As TAFKATSD said, avoiding stamina totally might be difficult. I specced out of stamina at about level 39ish.

As a spines/EA it is possible to do without stamina and survive on Energy Drain and Conserve Power. To be honest, I could probably survive just on Energy Drain (I tend to remember to use Conserve Power only when using Hasten). Can't say if it'll be possible for a Dark/EA stalker. I also find Energy Drain useful as a soft control on minions. Energy Drain is harder to use effectively in PVP due to the activation time and because the targets don't keep still.

I use repulse rarely. It's sometimes useful to keep a boss or elite boss off their feet. It reveals you so you can't AS from hide through it. I seem to remember being able to AS through placate, though I could be wrong. It never seems to work as well as I'd like it to in PVP though.

Oh I feel your pain!

I've a stalker that's been in the early 40s for months. Having missed lots of peoples push to 50 post I7 and the added complication of being a stalker (stalker team backlash) means he's not seen a team for as long as I can remember.

If you've room for a level 43.93 stalker shout @Luudo.

I've some non-quality time coming up this weekend if you've not yet done this Filth.

Don't worry about the stalkers, just think of yourself as bait!

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You really will need it!

My broadband connection has just died.

I hope it'll be back before 7:30, but if it's not I'm not a flake...

(I'm typing this a non gaming pc & connection)

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It came back at about 5:40, and then died an hour later. Just hoping that it comes back before 7:30...

You really will need it!

My broadband connection has just died.

I hope it'll be back before 7:30, but if it's not I'm not a flake...

(I'm typing this a non gaming pc & connection)

Some thoughts on EA slotting.

I can't think of a different way to slot the three shields.

I've slotted hide with three def buffs and no end red. I quite like how difficult to hit I am when I'm hidden. The defence in hide against aoe's helps a lot with this.

For the test event in RV I've slotted overload with 3 x recred, 1 x def buff & 2 x heal. I'm finding that there's not a lot that can hit me through that at the moment (of course I never remember to turn other shields off when overloading, but that doesn't bring endurance problems either. Extra hit points from the dull pain style boost of overload makes me worry less about not maxing the defence.

During the new test event I'm using an 'experimental' build without stamina. So far I'm finding that I'm surviving well with using energy drain and occasional use of Conserve Power (however I keep forgetting to use CP). The only time I have slight problems is when travelling as I use teleport. I'm probably going to find that in bigger zones this is going to be a problem.

I've specced in repulse but haven't found a way of using it effectively yet. This may have been because everyone I went up against last night was either a scrapper or a tanker and they didn't seem to be affected by Repulse. It may be that my endurance management might be ruined by repulse.

Spent a couple of hours last night trying a different build for my Spines/EA stalker and generally had a bit of fun...

Enjoyed some prolonged scrapping bouts with one of the many Eluded scrappers there seemed to be, and took great pleasure in using a couple of dirty tricks during the evening that had a couple of the said scrappers running...

Low point (although still fun) of the evening had to be when having taken control of a robot I managed to use it to take out the turrets on an unoccupied pill box whilst two villains kept a couple of scrappers and a tank at bay, only for a posse of heroes to arrive to gank me just as the final turret blew. Damn you pill box stealing heroes!

Name: Awn
Global: @Luudo
Archetype: Stalker
Powersets: Spines/EA

Positron is soloable.

To be honest I think I've finished Positron's task farce solo more often than I've finished it as part of a team.