_Castle_ Can you at least tell us this?

BlackSly · 03-24-2006 08:22 AM

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Wait... so soul transfer is "counter productive" yet CoF and OG remain? I'm confused.

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Why do Stalkers need Build-Up? To boost Assassin's Strike.
Do Stalkers need CoF and OG to use AS properly? No.
What is the use of CoF and OG? To fight the survivors after delivering the AS to the leader.

Real questions that come up from this:
1) Will the animations be reduced, or at least the powers made unrooting? (as I recall OG at least should be rooting) If the plan is to have the Stalker fire AS then bring up the powers, they have to come up relatively fast and painlessly, or it's worthless.

2) What is Shadow Dweller? Sounds like Phase Shift to me. Interesting mechanism, if so, to go with:
Build-Up -> AS
Follow-up attack if target needs one more hit to go down
Shadow Dweller for safety
bring up OG and CoF, and fight

Again, if so, SD needs to activate fast. If a set is going to be based upon turning toggles on at the appropriate times in a fight, those toggles should come up pretty fast, not like poor Fire Tanks who get rooted for a long time as they bring up Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, and Acrobatics. They have the HPs to survive doing that, if Stalkers are going to be expected to bring up a portion of their defenses mid-battle, these defenses need to come up FAST.

Oh, and the self rez... suxx0rs?

antenna · 03-24-2006 10:20 AM

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Dark melees Shadow Maul will be the cause of 90% of stalker deaths in game. horribly long time for pretty much a squishy to stand still.

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It's about the same as Total Focus and Thunder Strike for Blasters (and other squishy powers I imagine). It's not really a problem for them. I don't see why it would be that much of an issue for Stalkers... outside of waiting a couple extra seconds to get back into Hide.

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I have spines/ninjitsu and ripper's long animation almost gets ya killed a lot, Shadow Maul is gonna mean a stalker's death. Look at a DM/Regen, you can pretty much rock them when they are in mid animation, add in HP lower than a blasters and you're gonna be screwed.

Monkey_King · 03-24-2006 10:43 AM

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Oh, and the self rez... suxx0rs?

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It's no worse than Regen's self rez. It sees more usefulness mainly in groups, though. People tend to look down their noses at self-rezzes because they think they need to automatically make room for Fitness, and they don't even think about just how often even skilled players actually die.

Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball

GenericVillain · 03-24-2006 10:49 AM

It sucks because it's a replacement for a real 9th tier uber power, which regen also has (instant healing... maybe mog too, prolly not from what I hear), not because the concept of self-resses suck.

NewName · 03-24-2006 11:02 AM

It will be interesting to see how touch of fear works out on test, I'm thinking it will be an excellent setup for AS. Unless the person is /DA (is there anything else that resists fear?) or has a lot of BF's they are going to be in some serious trouble.

Gangrene · 03-24-2006 11:03 AM

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It's no worse than Regen's self rez. It sees more usefulness mainly in groups, though. People tend to look down their noses at self-rezzes because they think they need to automatically make room for Fitness, and they don't even think about just how often even skilled players actually die.

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Except that you need an NPC close by to use this Rezz. So if you run for safety and get shot down before you get clear (about 75% of all my deaths. Will be different depending on the person, of course) you won't be able to use this rezz at all. Regen's rezz is always usable.

And the fact that a few 250 Inf inspirations will do nearly the same thing, in more situations.

Gothika · 03-24-2006 11:28 AM

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It will be interesting to see how touch of fear works out on test, I'm thinking it will be an excellent setup for AS. Unless the person is /DA (is there anything else that resists fear?) or has a lot of BF's they are going to be in some serious trouble.

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You can go test it right now. Just get Intimidate from the Presence Pool and only use it in melee range. ToF should have a longer duration, though.

Gothika (Grav/Kin) Marionette (Ill/Rad) Terra Firma (Earth/Storm) Alana Dale (Arch/Nrg)
Iceblink (Ice/Dark) Fantasia (Mind/Fire) Shadow Minx (Claws/Nin)
--Virtue

NewName · 03-24-2006 11:44 AM

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It will be interesting to see how touch of fear works out on test, I'm thinking it will be an excellent setup for AS. Unless the person is /DA (is there anything else that resists fear?) or has a lot of BF's they are going to be in some serious trouble.

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You can go test it right now. Just get Intimidate from the Presence Pool and only use it in melee range. ToF should have a longer duration, though.

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Actually intimidate has a much lower base accuracy, takes about 3 times longer to recharge, takes up a power pool choice, forces you to take a power that is worthless to stalkers, and has no -accuracy debuff. Everyone knows how tight a stalker build can get so it's no wonder nobody really uses this but with DM it will be a different story.

TwilightSinger · 03-24-2006 11:56 AM

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Actually intimidate has a much lower base accuracy, takes about 3 times longer to recharge, takes up a power pool choice, forces you to take a power that is worthless to stalkers, and has no -accuracy debuff. Everyone knows how tight a stalker build can get so it's no wonder nobody really uses this but with DM it will be a different story.

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Don't kid yourself - a lot of players know how overpowered any form of Fear is in PvP right now (so few resists to it), and that includes Stalkers. Intimidate might involve having to take Provoke to obtain (and don't discount the anarchy you can cause in PvP with a timely taunt), but in a repetoire of 'I win' buttons a Stalker can have, it's among the most aggravating. Target immune to stun? 3 slot that Intimidate for accuracy.
Intimidate > Placate > BU (maybe even before the Intimidate to ensure it lands) > AS > followup.

Pretty much a build decision implicitly designed to take on the tougher targets like Scrappers and Tanks.

Chieta_Corps · 03-24-2006 12:13 PM

That makes me wonder: What would happen if you hit someone with a taunt then immediately placated them afterwards?

Looks like I have a new project

The_Gamemaster · 03-24-2006 12:35 PM

Giving Stalkers access to Touch of Fear is a going to be a mistake that, given historic trends, could lead to it being nerfed into uselessness for everyone else. It's essentially a soft Placate against anyone without a Breakfree. The same is true for OG and CoF. Nail them with AS, placate them, Nail them, stun/fear them, go back into Hide and AS them again. The other Dark Melee attacks are of secondary import.

If you keep DM's Brawl Indicies and activation times intact and give them a real Build Up, then you will have overriden the one balance point that Dark Melee had against single targets with respect to other sets.

If you think people don't like Stalkers now, give them this kind of control toolbox and you will get to see what true dislike is. That said, when this hits Test, you can bet your bippie that I am making a DM/DA Stalker.

BlazinBraz · 03-24-2006 12:47 PM

Where do I start?...OK at the beginning...

DM/SR

You can't hit what you swing at... I hit and debuff ... and bob & weave ...I hit again...rinse and repeat

"Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves" - Jesus the Christ

Gothika · 03-24-2006 12:49 PM

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It will be interesting to see how touch of fear works out on test, I'm thinking it will be an excellent setup for AS. Unless the person is /DA (is there anything else that resists fear?) or has a lot of BF's they are going to be in some serious trouble.

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You can go test it right now. Just get Intimidate from the Presence Pool and only use it in melee range. ToF should have a longer duration, though.

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Actually intimidate has a much lower base accuracy, takes about 3 times longer to recharge, takes up a power pool choice, forces you to take a power that is worthless to stalkers, and has no -accuracy debuff. Everyone knows how tight a stalker build can get so it's no wonder nobody really uses this but with DM it will be a different story.

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All of which is completely irrelevant as the person I was responding to wanted to test out how well fear would work as a setup for AS.

Gothika (Grav/Kin) Marionette (Ill/Rad) Terra Firma (Earth/Storm) Alana Dale (Arch/Nrg)
Iceblink (Ice/Dark) Fantasia (Mind/Fire) Shadow Minx (Claws/Nin)
--Virtue

Castle · 03-24-2006 12:53 PM

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That makes me wonder: What would happen if you hit someone with a taunt then immediately placated them afterwards?

Looks like I have a new project

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Doesn't work anymore. I abused it completely in our PvP testing and was nearly lynched. Now, whichever is the most recently cast takes precedence.

The_Gamemaster · 03-24-2006 01:02 PM

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Where do I start?...OK at the beginning...

DM/SR

You can't hit what you swing at... I hit and debuff ... and bob & weave ...I hit again...rinse and repeat

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A truly viscious cycle to be sure...

Punchy · 03-24-2006 01:09 PM

Those attacks do a lot more damage than shadow maul, though. I'm not sure about thunder strike, but total focus also packs 100% disorient.

Vangelus · 03-24-2006 01:31 PM

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That makes me wonder: What would happen if you hit someone with a taunt then immediately placated them afterwards?

Looks like I have a new project

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Doesn't work anymore. I abused it completely in our PvP testing and was nearly lynched. Now, whichever is the most recently cast takes precedence.

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For some reason, I find this heartwarming.

"GADFRICKIN STALKERS AWRGH" during in-house PvP testing. Hehehe.

DJs for The Cape Radio

Makes videos & podcasts about reviewing toys, covering conventions, and more at Vangelus.ca

CFIndustries · 03-24-2006 01:56 PM

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It sounds like DA will be the 'scrappiest' defense set for Stalkers, with CoF and OG available to toggle on to help mitigate incoming damage, though the self damage aspect of OG will be brutal on a Stalker, with such a low base Health. So someone could make a Claws/DA Stalker and almost feel like a Scrapper, with the damage over time nature and lower End usage of Claws.

I'm very curious what Shadow Dweller is and if it'll have Immobilize protection, which DA lacks.

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What I am curious about is how they expect us to play /DA. I'm envisioning a single opening AS, switch on the PBAoE and then scrap it out.

Problem being, on teams I can currently (with my 40 Claws/Ninjitsu) AS, scrap for a bit and use placate as it comes-up for additional mid-battle AS. But if I have a PBAoE running, then I'd have to switch that off first...that's too much to do mid-combat when I'm already barely contributing as a half-arsed scrapper.

I also agree about the activation time of these PBAoEs...hadn't considered that. They take a few seconds and you do get thumped while they come-up.

This makes the PBAoE's incredibly situational, and very skipable until the later levels (if taken at all). I can see using them with CoT for example, since I can rarely get-off an AS around them anyway, and my Claws/DA scrapper always found Fear + Gloom a great way to lock-down and disable Earth Casters. ;-)

I was also hoping that while Cloak of Darkness would likely go, that they'd use CoD's graphics for the /DA Hide.

Clan_Jericho · 03-24-2006 02:11 PM

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That makes me wonder: What would happen if you hit someone with a taunt then immediately placated them afterwards?

Looks like I have a new project

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Doesn't work anymore. I abused it completely in our PvP testing and was nearly lynched. Now, whichever is the most recently cast takes precedence.

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I'd just like to say...I love you, Castle.

;;

~Gabriel

BellaStrega · 03-24-2006 02:30 PM

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Shadow Punch
Smite
Shadow Maul
Assassin Strike
Build Up
Placate
Touch of Fear
Dark Consumption
Midnight Grasp

Just a guess.

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That's what I'd like to see, but I bet they'll leave in Siphon Life and take out Dark Consumption since DC does medium damage in an AoE. The AoE damage powers were the ones to go in the other sets (Spin, Dragon Tail, Whirling Hands, Lotus Drops and Spine Burst(?)).

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It also has a 180 second recharge and has a function similar to Energy Drain. This really hinders its use as a damage AoE (despite what people may think about the power).