One shotting has got to end
By
Acanous_Quietus,
Posted on: 2005-12-07 01:38 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Just checked it. My Stalker's HP is Warburg is 885.
That comes out to be 75.9% of Scrapper HP. Given the only direct analogy, SR Scrapper vs SR Stalker, the Stalker is 75.9% as survivable as the Scrapper.
An Energy Aura Stalker would be a bit less survivable than that since the defense values are a bit lower than SR. A Ninjitsu Stalker would be a bit less still, since its numbers are slightly lower than EA.
Regen is very difficult to calculate, which is why I didn't concider it a direct comparison. Regeneration is based on a percentage of maximum HP rather than a set HP/sec, meaning that a Stalker is going to have less HP being regenerated than a Scrapper with identical slotting. Dull Pain further muddies the waters. Honestly, I have no idea how to calculate a comparison.
Oh... I don't know... I had left my DA Scrapper in Bloody Bay today after a mission there when I had to go deal with the door. I logged back on - and knowing I was in a PvP area - deep in there - kicked on my Death Shroud to avoid Stalker attacks, then used my Jetpack (kindly provided by the Devs for Xmas - thx) ... I went straight up - so that I could not make out things below since I did not want to be harrassed by - or confuse anyone - flying Stalkers in particular.
I flew straight to the chopper and started to get on when suddenly both police drones fired and fried the stalker who'd been stalking me for a while apparently.
I have never laughed so hard in all my life. So I'm wondering - was the bugger really behind me from the point I left my mission and DS was running - or was he just there at the base?
And what's more ... if he was at the base, then why at the chopper pad?
C'mon Stalkers - give me some BS crap about how "I only go after people I know are doing PvP and not missions...", when you're hanging out around the chopper where people come in and out.
All this does is tell me two things about Stalkers...
1) They really aren't that bright.
2) They really are a bit over the line when they get as far as the chopper where you enter the zone.
well... and a third thing that I already knew...
3) They have no skill - if they have to gank to get a kill.
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All this does is tell me two things about Stalkers...
1) They really aren't that bright.
2) They really are a bit over the line when they get as far as the chopper where you enter the zone.
well... and a third thing that I already knew...
3) They have no skill - if they have to gank to get a kill.
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Holy overgeneralization, Batman!
Here's some additional numbers for concideration regarding AT survivability:
A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.
A blaster has 1050 HP in Warburg. He has 0% defense, so it takes 1050 damage to kill him.
My Stalker has 885 HP in Warbug. He has 23.5% defense (vs S/L), so it takes 885 + 23.5%, or 1092 damage to kill him.
My Stalker is 104% as survivable as the Blaster and 73% as survivable as the Scrapper.
That's ignoring a LOT of important factors like ACC enhancements, To-Hit buffs, etc but it's an interesting comparison I think.
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Here's some additional numbers for concideration regarding AT survivability:
A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.
A blaster has 1050 HP in Warburg. He has 0% defense, so it takes 1050 damage to kill him.
My Stalker has 885 HP in Warbug. He has 23.5% defense (vs S/L), so it takes 885 + 23.5%, or 1092 damage to kill him.
My Stalker is 104% as survivable as the Blaster and 73% as survivable as the Scrapper.
That's ignoring a LOT of important factors like ACC enhancements, To-Hit buffs, etc but it's an interesting comparison I think.
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Meaningless, as it ignores the active defenses that both Blasters and (especially) Stalkers have-such as Holds and Placate. Not to mention the "defensive" value of the one shot kill.
Thanks for the Hitpoint numbers, though-that is useful.
I see noone has stepped forward to show me how there stalkers are owning everything and trashing everyones fun.
I really want to see those of you that say stalkers need to be nerfed play one. Not being a jerk, I might learn somthing.
and it is possible that I will see the light and that stalkers need to be nerfed. As it stands now, the only thing I will get on board with is the toggle dropping aspect of the Eng. stalker, but that's only one stalker primary, they all don't have stun and toggle drops. Of course you'd probably need to do the same to eng. blasters too..to be fair.
Maybe on Protector is the only place that stalkers don't rule Pvp. but here they die just as easy as everyone else..more so maybe because everyone and their sister has IR goggles or somthing else that sees through hide, so they don't get to even use AS that much.
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Don't forget to help control the Furry population; have your Furry spayed or neutered!
Kellen Wolf/Claw/SR(Scrapper)/ protector
Si'Nifay/Electric/Fire(Blaster)/ protector
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Here's some additional numbers for concideration regarding AT survivability:
A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.
A blaster has 1050 HP in Warburg. He has 0% defense, so it takes 1050 damage to kill him.
My Stalker has 885 HP in Warbug. He has 23.5% defense (vs S/L), so it takes 885 + 23.5%, or 1092 damage to kill him.
My Stalker is 104% as survivable as the Blaster and 73% as survivable as the Scrapper.
That's ignoring a LOT of important factors like ACC enhancements, To-Hit buffs, etc but it's an interesting comparison I think.
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Based on a strick HP/Defense aspect, I guess you're correct. Factoring in other things is going to be a nightmare, and probably not easily done in as simple a fashion. I dont have any idea how you would factor in Hide, Placate and so on compared to a Scrapper who obviously lacks those tools (though I think we can all agree that Confront probably doesnt add to survivability 
). Primary sets come in there too, as things like Cobra Strike, Stun, and so on.
I can imagine that trying to make a comparison of % survivability between ATs when you factor in these things will be very difficult, but then I haven't taken math since I graduated high school a decade ago. I wasnt very good at it then either. 
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Based on a strick HP/Defense aspect, I guess you're correct. Factoring in other things is going to be a nightmare, and probably not easily done in as simple a fashion. I dont have any idea how you would factor in Hide, Placate and so on compared to a Scrapper who obviously lacks those tools (though I think we can all agree that Confront probably doesnt add to survivability ). Primary sets come in there too, as things like Cobra Strike, Stun, and so on.
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Exactly what I was thinking. There's a LOT more that goes into survivability than that, and I tried to point that out in my post. That's just a direct side-by-side comparison of HP and Defense numbers. Take it FWIW.
Basically, that was just a response the whole "stalkers have less def/no they don't/yes they do!/well stalkers have less hp!/no they don't/yes they do!" discussion that was taking place. That's how the def and HP break down.
Not to sound totally ignorant but......... An AT has a power which can kill other AT's in PVP, Correct?
I take it from what I read that it's pretty good.
So these AT's kill other AT's in PVP in One Shot.
If their victim is a stationary, not running any defenses which stop this ability and if they are not seen first and killed.
Wow. That is over powered, how dare the developers!
I say remove that power right now by GOLLY.
Here is what I want. I want everyone to have the exact same odds as everyone else, I want no one to use skill or intelligence in their play.
Walk to the middle of an area and just beat the crap out of each other, forever.
Geez, play the game, get better, learn how to stop the AT that can do this and drop the subject.
Worry about the bugs, the lock-ups, the sound looping, the crashes and the "content" of the game.
You are absolutely correct... I spent some more time in warburg tonight in an effort to get a direct stalker number... and when I did it was 885... I could have saved myself some time if I knew you were going to respond so quickly 
As such it is reasonable to assume that stalkers have roughly the defensive capacity that is equivalant to 75% of what scrappers have.
Certainly not squishy... but definately a noticable difference.
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A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.
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Your analysis here is actually a little off... here is why
That 28% defense is subtracted from the base to-hit of 50%
Therefore you are going from 50% to 22% which is equivalant to a factor of 2.27 increase in survivability over an AT with zero defense.
Your stalker who has 23.5% defense will end up increasing his survivability by a factor of 1.89.
Therefore if we take scrappers to be the baseline HP we get survival figures something like this :
Scrapper = 1
Stalker = .62
Blaster = .40
This also ignores ACC enhancements and to-hit buffs but shows pretty clearly that with the numbers given the stalker has roughly 2 thirds the survivability of the scrapper.
But the stalker is also 55% more survivable than a blaster.
Ok,the relavance of a stalkers hp is bs. My controller's hps is at the bottom of the rack. In WB, I have no epic pools for dmg resistance. My only defences are a self heal, debuffs, and my travel powers. EVERYONE carries BFs in WB. So mezzes for dmg mitigation arent a factor early fight. I still whoop 99.9% of everyones keyster in that zone, including stalkers. So please, dont bring hp into this debate.
The principle of this debate, at this point is, the environment it has currently created and the direction its going in. And I am not neccessaily speaking for myself when I debate stalker issues. I have an active sg that constantly pvps and run multiple perception and -stealth powers. I am conserned with the casual or new player who wants to scratch the surface with pvp and the pvp zones. Its nice to have an environment that is still in its infancy, that wont discourage and ultimately revolt these folks. Arena scared off a bunch of ppl for certain reasons. Pvp zones have so much more potential to stimulate more active pvp. I dont want to see a good thing ruined b/c a bunch of adolescent, power-hungry, gamers want to PWND unsuspecting noobs.
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Ok,the relavance of a stalkers hp is bs. My controller's hps is at the bottom of the rack. In WB, I have no epic pools for dmg resistance. My only defences are a self heal, debuffs, and my travel powers. EVERYONE carries BFs in WB. So mezzes for dmg mitigation arent a factor early fight. I still whoop 99.9% of everyones keyster in that zone, including stalkers. So please, dont bring hp into this debate.
The principle of this debate, at this point is, the environment it has currently created and the direction its going in. And I am not neccessaily speaking for myself when I debate stalker issues. I have an active sg that constantly pvps and run multiple perception and -stealth powers. I am conserned with the casual or new player who wants to scratch the surface with pvp and the pvp zones. Its nice to have an environment that is still in its infancy, that wont discourage and ultimately revolt these folks. Arena scared off a bunch of ppl for certain reasons. Pvp zones have so much more potential to stimulate more active pvp. I dont want to see a good thing ruined b/c a bunch of adolescent, power-hungry, gamers want to PWND unsuspecting noobs.
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No offense, at all, but IMO, you're thinking too much at this point. If this game gets ruined and gets shut down, it shouldn't be your responsibility to worry about it. I think you should focus more on gaming issues rather than marketing issues.
With that said, the common newb who just recently bought the game WILL wonder what's wrong. He will ask questions, and will sooner or later end up here. Reading this post that you made. And what affect will that have on the common newb? Yeah, that's right, the effect that you're trying to prevent. By giving the Stalker a negative feedback like this, you're causing that effect yourself, the discouragement. Making them have second thoughts about the game.
If you really think you would like to help the newbies/newcomers that gets, as you would state, harassed by Stalkers, it should be your job, since you care about it, to provide positive feedback and help them how to counter Stalkers in general, and not make them more pissed off at Stalkers.
But like I said, as a player, it shouldn't be your job to take care of newcomers or think about new people feeling discouraged about the game.
well, that's somthing completely different. You'll get new guys getting wasted when lvl 50s bring their char into BB. Those fight are hardly fair at all.
One of the biggest complaints I see, regardless of the AT, is how the battles are fought, it's very rare that battles are fought 1 on 1 or group on group. 1 or 2 people will get relativly isolated and pounced on by 3 or more enemies. The other complaint is how quickly travel powers remove opponents from the fight, somone gets hit once or twice and they are gone. While this is good for the one running, it sucks for the other one trying to fight. I suppose this is why there is so much ganging up..do enough damage as quick as you can before they SJ/Fly/SS/TP away. It can really be maddening to a scrapper that has TP or SS, when your oponent flys or SJs away and you can't close to melee range.
My flying scrapper is much more fun and successful than my TPing one for this reason.
The Harpers
It puts the lotion on it's skin or it gets the hose again!
Don't forget to help control the Furry population; have your Furry spayed or neutered!
Kellen Wolf/Claw/SR(Scrapper)/ protector
Si'Nifay/Electric/Fire(Blaster)/ protector
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Your analysis here is actually a little off
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You're absolutely right, it was off by a longshot. I was comparing them at 100% base to-hit instead of 50%. I forgot about the reduced baseline in PvP. Thank you for the correction.
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One of the biggest complaints I see, regardless of the AT, is how the battles are fought, it's very rare that battles are fought 1 on 1 or group on group. 1 or 2 people will get relativly isolated and pounced on by 3 or more enemies. The other complaint is how quickly travel powers remove opponents from the fight, somone gets hit once or twice and they are gone. While this is good for the one running, it sucks for the other one trying to fight. I suppose this is why there is so much ganging up..do enough damage as quick as you can before they SJ/Fly/SS/TP away. It can really be maddening to a scrapper that has TP or SS, when your oponent flys or SJs away and you can't close to melee range.
My flying scrapper is much more fun and successful than my TPing one for this reason.
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This is the one thing I currently dislike about the PvP zones at present, that you must constantly use your travel power to avoid the possibility of a Stalker creeping up behind you. It would be nice to be able to stand in one place and either take in the zone or fight without having to leap away after every few attacks.
A way to stop this behaviour would be to have players gain +Perception for every for 10 seconds they stand still. If they move from that location then the +Perception buff degrades the further away they move from the location, disappearing entirely after they've moved over, say, 300ft from that location. This would obviously need to be balanced for Stalkers so if they stand still then they gain a +Stealth. In the interests of balance this should disappear the instant they move though, else they would always be able to have a 'hunting ground' where they would always be at the stealth cap.
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This is the one thing I currently dislike about the PvP zones at present, that you must constantly use your travel power to avoid the possibility of a Stalker creeping up behind you. It would be nice to be able to stand in one place and either take in the zone or fight without having to leap away after every few attacks.
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Sounds like you simply don't like to be caught off guard, if you haven't noticed that's the entire point of the AT. To catch you when you least expect it and take you down as fast as they can. I have a feeling that until stalkers are completly gimped unable to sneak on people or take them down no one will ever be really "happy" with them because of the nature of the AT.
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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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I know I'm a bit late, but that's pretty funny. 
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Ok, so I've been browsing some of the threads out there with the concern to stalkers and found/came-up with some interesting options. First off, like the devs have done it the past add facets to current powers, i.e. add +perception to thing that would make sense like possibly Super speed, Accelerate metabolism, Speed boost, or anything in the realm of adding alertness as a side-effect. It was done with certain mezz powers in I5, it can be done with perception too.
Another idea is taking current +perception powers, (diclaimer....not my original idea), adding +perception enhancements to current percption powers, Tactic in particular. If you can invest 3 +perception enhancements to a perception power and it would allow you to see thru stealth/hide, it would be more bearable to some folks. This is a raw concept, but a start to a solution.
A few more things I'd like to add. EVERY AT has been tweeked/nerfed for balance. You guys remember I5/6? So why is it such a outlandish idea to adjust a brand-new AT?
Second, many ppl aren't looking at the big picture. Ok, fine so if you wanna be viable in pvp you must take +perception and/or a AOE toggle. That's how stalker critics will tell you to "smarten up". Even when as mentioned by the devs, they dont want any person to be compelled to pick-up a specific pool power (e.g. Hasten/stamina). The temporary satisfaction of one-shotting all these so-called uber pvp builds, will fade just as that estatic feeling of breezing thru invincible solo missions at 50 or soloing AVs. I did it in another MMO, where challenge was non-existant, and I quit shortly after. Its not worth it in the long run, to ward-off solo/noob pvpers just for a short lived, cheap satisfaction. I dont want to see an environmet where all potention pvper are forced into picking up the Leadership pool, or forced to team ALL the time b/c of the allure of the stalker. I guarrantee the stalker population will rise if unchecked, just as all the other arena cookie-cutter builds have.
One thing I have noticed in this thread is the confusion around "Alpha Strikes" and "one shotting" being one and the same. No they are not. With a one shot you have just that. One shot One kill. Using a battery of attacks at once is just that a battery of attacks. In other words multiple attacks in rapid sequence to do as much damage as possible. Lets break this down a bit so I can clarify myself further.
Assassin Strike. The Stalkers greeting card of sorts. This attack does massive damage when the stalker is hiding. This is broken up into two words. Assassin: N One who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person. And Strike: V To hit sharply, as with the hand, the fist, or a weapon.
Well An assassin strike means roughly a sharp hit by someone meant to murder another person. An Assassin. I wonder why they would call it assassin strike if you couldn't in theory kill a foe in a single blow...... Wow ya know?
Lets break up the term Alpha Strike so its understood better. A series of attacks in rapid sucession to do as much damage as possible. I will use my Stone Brute's powers for this comparison vs a +2 boss while my granite armor is on (im a brute but I aint stupid!) I did it this way to best simulate the pvp situation to my ability because frankly in warburg I have trouble finding test subjects
My strike consists of Tremor, Seismic Smash, Brawl, Stone Mallet, Heavy Mallet, and buildup
Fury bar at 50%
Brawl: 30 dmg
Seismic smash: 238 dmg
Heavy mallet: 158 dmg
Stone mallet: 118 dmg
Tremor: 62 dmg
Total damage: 602
This is a battery of 5 attacks with buildup and 50-55% fury and Granite armor vs a +2 boss (council human type)
I use the same battery of attacks on people in SC or WB after a TP foe to take enough health off of them to let my team finish them off. Now I brought up tp foe because of one simple reason, if you are Stone/stone and you want to have defense of any kind you need Granite/rooted which means you cant jump, cant run, all they can do is keep you in range of the hammer.
Nerf Stalkers? Nah leave em alone, it takes 4 to kill me in WB and thats if I havent popped a purple (note I said A purple as in 1). AS is a wonderous power that can kill quickly and it is the bread and butter of being a stalker, all I have heard here from 85% of the posters is that stalkers need AS nerfed big time. Stalkers are quite balanced in damage output and defense, extreme damage, defense is low enough to if you get your hands on them they crumble, kind of like a short range blaster that hides better.
All this endless "nerf them they killed me" talk is just going to confuse the devs into believing they messed up. I am not saying they havent messed up before, they have admitted to it on a few occasions. What I am saying, however, is that if you try some fresh tactics (the knowledge not the click power) you will find that Stalkers are quite balanced, so much so that if you go stalker watching (one of my fav things to do btw) you can see how often they dont land a target, accidentally step on some caltrops, etc.......
The real problem with pvp in general is people keep seeing the same l33t people out there as certain AT's killing hoards of others with TPfoe/team alpha or buildup/AS/placate/focus. I have a solution to everyone's problem.
Dont get stressed out because someone is better at something than you, feel at ease that there are people out there even better than that person, and when they arrive , I am sure Ill see the post that the better person's AT is gonna be on the boards with the l33t person saying they need to be nerfed.
Good day
Little Axe
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This is the one thing I currently dislike about the PvP zones at present, that you must constantly use your travel power to avoid the possibility of a Stalker creeping up behind you. It would be nice to be able to stand in one place and either take in the zone or fight without having to leap away after every few attacks.
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Sounds like you simply don't like to be caught off guard, if you haven't noticed that's the entire point of the AT. To catch you when you least expect it and take you down as fast as they can. I have a feeling that until stalkers are completly gimped unable to sneak on people or take them down no one will ever be really "happy" with them because of the nature of the AT.
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There's no need for them to be "completely gimped" over this issue. For the most part people don't have an issue with being sneak attacked - they have an issue with the very short period of time between initiation of sneak attack and death, which denies them the oppotunity to actually combat.
If Stalkers are such weak combatants that they cannot complete a kill after a successful sneak attack that eliminates, say, 50% of a recipients HP - then that needs to be fixed in tandem with any one-shot fix. And can be. It's not a binary either/or of "Stalkers get to one-shot or they will be gimped".
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A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.
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Your analysis here is actually a little off... here is why
That 28% defense is subtracted from the base to-hit of 50%
Therefore you are going from 50% to 22% which is equivalant to a factor of 2.27 increase in survivability over an AT with zero defense.
Your stalker who has 23.5% defense will end up increasing his survivability by a factor of 1.89.
Therefore if we take scrappers to be the baseline HP we get survival figures something like this :
Scrapper = 1
Stalker = .62
Blaster = .40
This also ignores ACC enhancements and to-hit buffs but shows pretty clearly that with the numbers given the stalker has roughly 2 thirds the survivability of the scrapper.
But the stalker is also 55% more survivable than a blaster.
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Actually, in all fairness it should be pointed out that your numbers are only good for one situation, same as Quason's. If the person trying to hit you were under the effect of Darkest Night or some other to-hit debuff that lowered their accuracy to 30% or so, then both Scrapper and Stalker Defense floors their accuracy. That lowers the importance of the hit point differential , and magnifies the importance of the Defense advantage they both have over a Blaster. On the other hand, at 130% accuracy-which should be easily reachable in short bursts for Aim/BU using Blasters-Stalker/Scrapper Defense is meaningless, and the importance of that HP difference is magnified. Heck, at that point the Blaster is more survivable than the Stalker, disregarding any active defense that either might have.Defense as a means of avoiding damage is much more complicated than Resistance, and much more dependant on your opponents capabilities.
What you can say is that Stalkers probably seem a little more squishy to themselves than they actually are, because a lot of the powers that allow people to see and attack them-Tactics, Targetting Drone, Aim, and yellow skittles-also (effectively) lower their defenses by raising their attackers ability to hit them. On the other hand, Stalkers probably seem less fragile than they are in reality to people who can't see them, because having the initiative and placate combine for fantastic effective defense. Stalker Defenses on top of that is icing-though it's pretty darn tasty icing.
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I don't think this is a balance issue, at it's core-at least, I don't think that Stalkers as-is are grossly unbalanced, and I'm not willing to say they're unbalanced at all 'til I've seen how things play out a bit more. I think this is an issue of style, and access.
The quick, brutal, one-shot style game naturally appeals to the kind of people who enjoy PvP the most. It's completely unforgiving-basically a series of manuevers to "get the drop" on your opponents and keep them from getting the drop on you. Stalkers are by far the best AT in this game for that playstyle, so naturally the people who enjoy that are playing Stalkers. They don't understand why people complain about being one-shotted. They don't object to it when it happens to them, so obviously anyone who does object is just whining.
People who have a more "casual" attitude towards PvP (at least in my experience) prefer fights with a little bit longer duration. They'd like to have a chance to use a wider variety of their powers, and would prefer to see more acts and counters in the actual fight, rather than in the buildup. They don't understand how anyone can get enjoyment from a 3 second fight-so obviously anyone who fights like that is an evil ganker who's only pleasure is to ruin everyone's day.
In truth, it's going to be awfully hard to satisfy both sides completely, but the PvP game as it plays right now is way to twitchy for me, whether I win or lose. I think that's true for the majority of players. Of course, we could just leave it to the people who enjoy it as it is. But in the long run if you want PvP to bve more than an awkward and little used appendage you're going to have to find some way to come to terms with the casual players who-face it-are the majority of this playerbase.
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That's IMHO, the best way this whole argument has ever been framed. ...Even as it's at odds with my own desires that AlphaStriking remain a viable tactic for a minority of encounters... But it highlights the fact that casual gamers are what really drives successful and entertaining PvP and Head-to-Head gaming... As proven by Counterstrike, Starcraft, and Battlefield.
The greatest PvP games have as many checks and balances set up as possible to ensure that most players can't just zip in and bypass the defenses and/or offenses of any other player. It's not the "1-shotting" that's the biggest problem, it's the ease at which it's being carried out that is continuing to drive casual gamers away from PvP.
...And YES! They ARE being driven away. I'm not talking about the Forum whiners here. I've spent too many hours to count in various PvP zones and have seen too many players already voice their discontent with being "unable to fight back" against so many of the cheap tactics being exploited in PvP. They do it in team chat, broadcast, and some even complain about it in PvE zones to discourage others from even trying PvP. It's the main reason that many AT's, both of the Villain and Hero factions stay out of PvP even though Castle and the devs have balanced team PvP to rely on those AT's also showing up to these zones. ...Masterminds and Dominators are the most noteable ones though in complaining about their defenses being bypassed instantly. So it's not just people facing Stalkers who are geting fed up with 5-second fights. ...You can't learn anything from a conflict when it ends before you've even realized it began.
Any PvP that doesn't give both players the opportunity to change the outcome of the fight, while the fight is happening will be loathed by the majority of players because the majority of players are not Quasons, they're not CircuitBoys, they're not Pilcrows(There's too many sucky illusion controllers out there as it is!), and they're certainly not _Castles_. They lack the creativity or raw math skills to narrow these issues down and figure out what "they're doing wrong". And yes Cryptic is Special, special in that they're never happy with the level of challenge they ask their players to face. But Cryptic is going to have to side with the carebears a little bit if all AT's are going to be welcome in PvP in order to support their design goal of having PvP built around Team vs Team matchups. You have to crawl before you can walk, just like most people solo for a while before they really get heavy into teaming.
And constant Insta-Gank is NOT solo-friendly ... thus it's discouraging the Teaming that PvP was built around.
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I think both of these posts are exactly how most people are feeling about PvP. I've never really PvPed before so this is my first time really. I've changed my build and everything to try and combat stalkers and in the end it mostly seems like a two hit battle, with me having little or no time to react to what happened.
I love this idea....
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Instead of letting people place you exactly where they want you, TP Foe places people at a random place around the summoner
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The summoner won't know exactly where the foe ends up, but still has a clear advantage, since he should still have the foe targetted. For melee classes it would be a TP Foe and the follow, for all other classes it's a TP Foe and then ranged attack or command.
The summoner could also still make traps or what not but them actually working would be an extreme case of luck.
I also liked the idea of all of us popping as AVs to each other, it kind of makes sense, we should maybe atleast show up as Elite Bosses to each other.
I want battles. Something where if I use the right powers and tactics I can stack my chances of coming out alive, but at the same time not being guaranteed the win. It doesn't matter if I'm fighting a dominator or a stalker, I want to atleast have the chance for a good fight. Right now I feel that stalkers are the only class that have the odds stacked so much in their favor that I can't counter it reliably.
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This is the one thing I currently dislike about the PvP zones at present, that you must constantly use your travel power to avoid the possibility of a Stalker creeping up behind you. It would be nice to be able to stand in one place and either take in the zone or fight without having to leap away after every few attacks.
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Sounds like you simply don't like to be caught off guard, if you haven't noticed that's the entire point of the AT. To catch you when you least expect it and take you down as fast as they can. I have a feeling that until stalkers are completly gimped unable to sneak on people or take them down no one will ever be really "happy" with them because of the nature of the AT.
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There's no need for them to be "completely gimped" over this issue. For the most part people don't have an issue with being sneak attacked - they have an issue with the very short period of time between initiation of sneak attack and death, which denies them the oppotunity to actually combat.
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Exactly. I don't have an issue with being sneak attacked or being nearly one shotted. I do have an issue being them both happening at the same time and happening more than once in short succession which, given the prevelance of Stalkers in PvP at the moment is a distinct possibility.
I don't want Stalkers to be gimped either, I think that their ability to one shot is an important part of their archetype. I also have absolutely no problem with being one shot. What I do think is the problem is, again mainly due to the prevelance of Stalkers atm, someone can get AS'd by a Stalker, go to the hospital, make their way back to a hotspot/fight, only to be one shotted again by another Stalker with absolutely no chance of detecting or defeating this attack.
(Aside: Yes someone could use Tactics etc, but as has been stated many times, PvP should not infulence PvE. It should not be necessary for any player to take a power or powerest in order to participate in PvP. If Tactics become essential, this is not the case.)
I'm just looking for a way not to 'gimp' Stalkers but to alter other game mechanics to allow Stalkers to continue as they are and also give other Archetypes some way of combating them. I've made some other suggestions here, if anyone is interested.
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If Stalkers are such weak combatants that they cannot complete a kill after a successful sneak attack that eliminates, say, 50% of a recipients HP - then that needs to be fixed in tandem with any one-shot fix. And can be. It's not a binary either/or of "Stalkers get to one-shot or they will be gimped".
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Quoted mainly for emphasis. This isn't a matter of 'Gimp AS/Stalkers or else'. Stalkers currently have a massive advantage in PvP which, given the right or should that be wrong circumstances, will completely ruin someone's first experience of PvP and stop them going anywhere near those zones again. Any change to AS should have a corresponding change to Stalkers other powers and I don't know anyone who is saying otherwise.
Aethon - Scrapper, Rampart Strategos, Pinnacle
Krasnaya Zvezda - Warshade CCCP Official - Pinnacle
Gail Donovan - Defender, Justice
Volcanic Flame - Tanker, Team Volcano Captain, Freedom
Praesidium - Mastermind, Freedom
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Really? 90%? I'd heard 75%. Can you point me to your numbers?
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This is the data I collected in warburg earlier today :
Scrapper HP = 1165
Tanker HP = 1630
Blaster HP = 1050
Controller HP = 885
Brute HP = 1305
Corruptor HP = 930
Master Mind HP = 700
I was unable to gather the direct value of a stalkers HP at lvl 38... but I have been told that they follow the same progression as blasters which would indicate they possess 1050.
I am also under the impression that stalkers possess more HP than a similiar level corruptor... which would indicate that they have more than 930.
This sets a lower limit at 80% of a scrappers HP with a strong likelihood that is it 90%.
If you can gather a more direct measurement I would be happy to include it here... I am infering the 90% result as opposed to measuring it directly since I do not have a villain high enough in level to check from the villain side.... and it is not really possible to check up on a stalker from the hero side.