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is it their fault though? I think not. The SF's design doesn't favor Stalkers since they're just pure damage. But ya know what? I've had three successful RSF runs and we had one stalker in two of the three time. Masterminds and Doms can't get a invite? that's a load of [censored], same thing for other Brute types.
I find your "fact" not only flawed, but stupid.
My first successful RSF team consisted of...
3 Brutes - 2 Stone, 1 Fire
2 Masterminds - 1 Dark, 1 Bubbles
2 Corruptors - none were /Rad or /Kin from what I remember
1 Dominator - believe she was Ice
the other stone brute, the dominator and one of the corruptors were people that completed the SF successfuly and knew what to do about pulling.
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I think you misunderstand... the poster whose fact you think is so stupid is stating something that is pretty well known and has been for some time. I think I can speak for most everyone when I say I sure am glad to hear that you guys were successful with the make-up you had. That's great. BUT!!!! where the SF is concerned Stalkers almost have to buy their way into one. Dominators too, for that matter. I really haven't read a whole lot of MM's who are stuggling to get into one, but that doesn't mean a problem isn't there for them either. 
I know it's a issue that he's stating, but it's far from fact...
I found this interesting that a SB'd Dom can keep one FP Hero at bay in the last mission w/ a hold or sleep
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PvP zones are now a daycare for all of the old spammers, killstealers, and other 9-12 yr old malcontents who used to only be able to anger people in the chat box, but now can ruin someones day much easier and faster by genking them without the worry of the Ignore button. IMHO
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You made water come out my nose. That was priceless and eerily accurate in many (but not all) cases, heh.
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is it their fault though? I think not. The SF's design doesn't favor Stalkers since they're just pure damage. But ya know what? I've had three successful RSF runs and we had one stalker in two of the three time. Masterminds and Doms can't get a invite? that's a load of [censored], same thing for other Brute types.
I find your "fact" not only flawed, but stupid.
My first successful RSF team consisted of...
3 Brutes - 2 Stone, 1 Fire
2 Masterminds - 1 Dark, 1 Bubbles
2 Corruptors - none were /Rad or /Kin from what I remember
1 Dominator - believe she was Ice
the other stone brute, the dominator and one of the corruptors were people that completed the SF successfuly and knew what to do about pulling.
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If that was indeed true then we would see everyone being invited to do the RSF instead of just Stone Brutes and Corruptors with the occassional pity slot for a friend. It stretches the imagination beyond all reasonable belief that the team you list above could do it currently.
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For full disclosure, you also need to specify whether those were lvl 52 heroes or the full blown lvl 54's. Unless it was recent, then the data is stale due to more recent changes.
Also, are MM's really undesired on the SF? I can understand limiting to 1 or 2, but a poison, dark, or force field MM should find some use with buffs and debuffs.
Maybe MMs are excluded because people are afraid the pets will over aggro the heroes?
Yes most of these opinions have been seen across the board as to reasons why stalkers are not included. Mostly its just plain hatred for the Stalker AT.
They are gankers its there only power they have and by there very nature they are hated. Another reason why they hate us is because due to how the Devs designed us we have to go after the weak or hurt characters.
We have to kill Controlers We have to kill blasters. The Developers created a bad class. I like my stalker I have fun with him and I am very usefull in a team. What I am not good for is killing 8 AV's in a row.
That is not our problem but a Development issue. The only way I can think to fix a Stalker and keep him balanced is to maybe make all of his attacks do something that could benefit the team. Maybe one of our attacks could be a guaranteed Hold power. Maybe one of our attacks do and extreem defense debuff or a toggle drop. Make it dependent on the the type of character we are fighting if we are going against an AV that has defenses to the moon our attacks do less damage but do more debuff. If we are fighting something that all health and no defense maybe our attacks do more and we dont debuff.
I really dont know at this point I have parked my stalker at 48 because no one will take me along on a RSF. I have built it to be able to tank a bit and stand in there with the brute but it wont help me get a team. Its hard to beleive that I have put almost a year of honest work into my character and I get not benefit for doing so.
Everyone hates stalkers because of the way the developers designed them. Its not our fault that they work this way but we do still like them. When I first built a stalker I thought of a ninja who would go out and scout for a team and take down big bosses. For the most part this is true accept for the fact that everything that can do the most amount of damage to us can see us or are resistant to a placate in both PvE play and PvP play.
The Devs have as much as said that they need to work on stalkers. But for now I have no reason to play one. A defender who by its very nature is to defend has close to the same amount of HP's as we do and we are nothing but pure offense.
I have discustingly set aside my stalker at level 48 because I could no longer stand not being involved. I am building a RAD corruptor in hopes that I can get a on a RSF. By that time the Devs will have figured that they are too powerfull and a year from now when I am ready to try again they will have nerfed the Rad Corruptors so they are worthless as well.
I doubt this even gets read anymore by the devs but just in case they are I would like to thank them for a year of wasted work on my part.
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Another reason why they hate us is because due to how the Devs designed us we have to go after the weak or hurt characters.
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Exactly. The stalker is custom made for cheap and easy kills, which attracted a certain playerbase to them. There are some good players that play stalkers, but there are a lot of bad players that latched onto stalkers and are more common.
The reason why /rads do so well against AV's, is that those AV's have specific boosts that rads are designed to counteract. Stalkers do so poorly because those same strengths happen to be a stalker's achille's heel.
I don't think secondary effects to the attacks will help. The only real solution I see to balance stalkers is reducing reliance on AS'ing into oblivion to survive. E.g. reducing the AS damage while raising hit points, and then giving a bump to regular attacks to make up for the lost damage from the AS.
It'd make stalkers a lot more scrapperish, but would still maintain a lot of stealthy flavor.
Everything is easier with rads...muhahahahaha.
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Another reason why they hate us is because due to how the Devs designed us we have to go after the weak or hurt characters.
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Exactly. The stalker is custom made for cheap and easy kills, which attracted a certain playerbase to them. There are some good players that play stalkers, but there are a lot of bad players that latched onto stalkers and are more common.
The reason why /rads do so well against AV's, is that those AV's have specific boosts that rads are designed to counteract. Stalkers do so poorly because those same strengths happen to be a stalker's achille's heel.
I don't think secondary effects to the attacks will help. The only real solution I see to balance stalkers is reducing reliance on AS'ing into oblivion to survive. E.g. reducing the AS damage while raising hit points, and then giving a bump to regular attacks to make up for the lost damage from the AS.
It'd make stalkers a lot more scrapperish, but would still maintain a lot of stealthy flavor.
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Give me a break. The reason Stalkers don't get invites to the freakin' RSF is because people fail too often as is, and the more precise the team, the better chance you have. Maybe this is a reason why they picked up less then Dominators, but I have never sent an invite to a Dominator or a Stalker unless there was already a strong team of 7 and we bring them along for the ride. A Stalker is never as useful as a brute, just as a Dominator is never as useful as Corruptor. The need to succeed is what make it where you don't get invites.
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Give me a break. The reason Stalkers don't get invites to the freakin' RSF is because people fail too often as is, and the more precise the team, the better chance you have. Maybe this is a reason why they picked up less then Dominators, but I have never sent an invite to a Dominator or a Stalker unless there was already a strong team of 7 and we bring them along for the ride. A Stalker is never as useful as a brute, just as a Dominator is never as useful as Corruptor. The need to succeed is what make it where you don't get invites.
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I'm trying to figure out if you are disagreeing with me that Stalkers aren't really balanced and needs work, or if you think brutes always being more useful than stalkers is fine.
What I'm talking about goes beyond just the RSF. Do you think you can do the thorn respec with 2 stalkers, 2 MM's, and a corrupter? Replace one or both of those stalkers with brutes and you'll do OK.
The RSF just takes the PVE balance problems ineherant to the AT's and magnifies them.
Dear all the people who have been on successful LRSF strike forces with out rads or stone brutes,
Congrats! For real!! Your cookies will be delivered to you ASAP...
Now for everyone else 
I think I read somewhere not to long ago that a red name said, "Doms are exactly how we want them...."
Now I believe that same red name is posting about how doms will be getting a BUFF... Seems to me they don't really know what to do about the LRSF imablance.
*insert hyena type laugh here*
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And yes, all of this bug fixing has pushed out I8 beyond the original "September" estimate I gave back in May.
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Better to release it as clean as possible than as early as possible, I always say.
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Another reason why they hate us is because due to how the Devs designed us we have to go after the weak or hurt characters.
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Exactly. The stalker is custom made for cheap and easy kills, which attracted a certain playerbase to them. There are some good players that play stalkers, but there are a lot of bad players that latched onto stalkers and are more common.
The reason why /rads do so well against AV's, is that those AV's have specific boosts that rads are designed to counteract. Stalkers do so poorly because those same strengths happen to be a stalker's achille's heel.
I don't think secondary effects to the attacks will help. The only real solution I see to balance stalkers is reducing reliance on AS'ing into oblivion to survive. E.g. reducing the AS damage while raising hit points, and then giving a bump to regular attacks to make up for the lost damage from the AS.
It'd make stalkers a lot more scrapperish, but would still maintain a lot of stealthy flavor.
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Give me a break. The reason Stalkers don't get invites to the freakin' RSF is because people fail too often as is, and the more precise the team, the better chance you have. Maybe this is a reason why they picked up less then Dominators, but I have never sent an invite to a Dominator or a Stalker unless there was already a strong team of 7 and we bring them along for the ride. A Stalker is never as useful as a brute, just as a Dominator is never as useful as Corruptor. The need to succeed is what make it where you don't get invites.
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And what the [censored] are you talking about presicion with a character class who by definintion dont do presice damage at all but are just general damage. Its a 4 hour Strike Force that the Devs screwed 2 whole character classes out of.
So what you are saying its our fault that we made these characters when launch occured becasue that is what we wanted to play. Its our fault that a character class that was intended for presicion killing has been turning into the most hated class because of 12 year olds who think its cool to kill steal. Dont blame us for a design issue we already have to deal with the fact that we cant get on the Strike Force. If you want to bash an AT start your IHATE STALKERS room and go away from this one. In this room we are discusing issues with the game in general not your personal hatred or dislike of an AT.
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... The only real solution I see to balance stalkers is reducing reliance on AS'ing into oblivion to survive. E.g. reducing the AS damage while raising hit points, and then giving a bump to regular attacks to make up for the lost damage from the AS.
It'd make stalkers a lot more scrapperish, but would still maintain a lot of stealthy flavor.
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Part of me likes this idea, because it would be a "fix" for them. However it heads in the same direction as the morass that existed quite a while ago where the dividing line between Scrappers and Tankers got very thin. If you start whittling away at the very essence of what makes a stalker into a stalker, then why not just ditch the entire AT, and make them into Villain side scrappers?
And stand by for an incredible cacophony of howls when you do so.
Before you say "stealth", there's a rather funny point to make here. I respecced Alissara when I discovered that Tough and Weave were of questionable value, and took the concealment pool instead. (*) Believe it or not, this call was made before I even knew how stalkers worked. So I have a very "stalker'ish" scrapper already. She uses invis A LOT, and while I don't get the huge up front alpha that A.S. gives, dropping a focus or a shockwave right out of invisibility (or TP foe) allows for a good sized chunk of damage before the mob(s) has/have time to react.
(*) BTW, I vow to quit the game if the devs ever remove or nerf this pool. At least the invis portion, I don't give a flying rats about the def section since that's not why I took it. Contact me at @Alissara if you want my stuff.
I agree, the stalker has the problem of being a one trick pony. It does that trick incredibly well indeed, but since it's not particularly useful in a PvE we have the situation we do.
As a side note to this, I have to wonder what would happen if the rate of attack of stalkers were twiddled, either the recharge time on their stealth, or using placate, so that in the long term, their DPS using AS repeatedly could be made to match that of a scrapper.
As it is right now, my DPS output exceeds that of a stalker if the stalker remains visible. I do not believe that is under debate here.
However, an AV fight lasts for quite a while. Just say that running my attack chain over and over gets (for example) 100 DPS average over a minute. That'd be 6,000 total damage per minute, including misses, focus boosts, critical hits, etc, etc. OK, so assume that a comparable stalker can do 600 points via A.S. If he can do that every 10 seconds in an AV fight, he's exactly as useful as a scrapper, in terms of raw damage output: 6,000 points per minute.
Does this even begin to make sense?
Scrappers are just like chainsaws. Somewhat hard to handle, EXTREMELY dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane.
@Alissara - an Angry Angel
The Angry Angels. When it absolutely positively has to be spanked today.
Clarification:
My opinion is NOT that Stalkers should be shuned. My opinion is NOT that it is totally correct that people do shun them. My opinion IS that the reason they don't get invites to the RSF has close to NOTHING to do with people feelings in the AT as a PvPer. My opinion IS that a Stalker DOES hurt your team and anyone trying to succeed would rather opt the Stalker out for a Brute as their melee fighter. I feel that they should all have their place in that SF. Hell, they SHOULD have put something in that made it to where you HAD to have every AT on your team. Or at least made it to where they would make it a lot faster or easier some where with-in the SF.
My prior post was made in reference to the several post where people stated that it was more because of personal feelings that Stalkers don't get invited. I should have quoted better, and I apologize for the confusion. I made a mistake.
I do have an idea I dont know if it will work for the stalker issue. It will both increase our endurance and make us a more viable AT.
I think our A Strike should do take away 25% of what ever target we choose HP's away when hit with a fully sloted A strike. When out of hide we still have a chance of critical or as I stated in some other room before add a chance for critical to the Build Up power all stalkers have.
That way we do more DPS and are still at our best when hidden.
Example.....Target=[censored] its a Devs toon with 100,000 HP's
We run up and A Strike and Boom he is down to 75,000 HP's
We take off 25,000 HP's
We then hit build up and start hiting with the Brute until Placate comes back up and then we hide again.
Then we A Strike again and we take off 25% of the 75,000 remain HP's or translated we do 18,750 and the AV is left with 56,250. and so on and so forth till the AV or Player Character or whatever is dead.
A strike has dimishing returns and becomes less useful as the AV losses more and more HP's.
That sounds like it would be overpowering but just ask a blaster wouldnt they rather have knockdown drag out fight with a stalker who just ran up and took 25% of your HP away instead of 95%. Then have that stalker do close to scapper like damage until it can hide again then continue the fight.
To make that work we will need to have the ability some way or another to do Criticals outside of hide so we can continue the fight. Also we will have to get more in the way of defenses built into our secondaries or if you are a Regen then please make the regen work half as good as a scappers....Also and this is a must . WE NEED MORE HP's. Other than that its all I can think of to do.
I know this will generate Hatefull replys as well I am sure. It was just an idea it may not be a good one or may need refined. It is just an idea and it would still make the stalker a weapon of stealth.
Has there been an update I missed or this is still a NOT YET earned respec for us?? 
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Any word on the Patron respec bug? A red name said it would be in a patch on test weeks ago and that was the last we heard about it.
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Sirens Call: Hit some untargeted Mobs with AoE DeBuff, maybe some minor damage, but under 20 points of damage to be sure. This translated into 9000 XP Debt or about 3.5 Mission Complete Bonuses for this toon. I think that is wrong for stray AoE DeBuff in a PvP zone to award debt so high. The Mobs were in no danger.
Quixotik
"I did not say this. I am not here." -Guild Navigator
When will the updated quit trying to open Internet Explorer and instead open the default htm(l) viewer?
Alt-holic - Always have characters from startup to 50 as scrappers or Defenders.
My serialized story about world created so badly the creatures fight back.
It won't.
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Sirens Call: Hit some untargeted Mobs with AoE DeBuff, maybe some minor damage, but under 20 points of damage to be sure. This translated into 9000 XP Debt or about 3.5 Mission Complete Bonuses for this toon. I think that is wrong for stray AoE DeBuff in a PvP zone to award debt so high. The Mobs were in no danger.
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Debt in a PvP zone is supposed to be based on the damage dealt to you by the mobs, not the damage you deal them.
Is the Evil nictus archtype for villains coming out in issue 9
Stalkers dont get invites because most people hate both them and the people that play them. Mainly due to actions and genking in the PvP zones. I've seen a great number of posts about players never wanting to team with Stalkers due to the actions of the few bad seeds. That and they have almost no PvE value at all other than mission stealthing. IMO
PvP zones are now a daycare for all of the old spammers, killstealers, and other 9-12 yr old malcontents who used to only be able to anger people in the chat box, but now can ruin someones day much easier and faster by genking them without the worry of the Ignore button. IMHO
Stone tanks/brutes are the strongest defensive tankers of all and should be left so, since Invuln took such a huge hit with nerfs and lack of slow/recharge protection makes them almost useless at high lvls. Try a Mayhem vs. PPD psi-cops, and you'll see what I mean. IMO
My suggestion: If noone wants you on the RSF make a toon people DO want. Thats the advice I get from most genking stalkers when I ask them to please let me live for 5 whole seconds in PvP zones. Well, that and "if you dont like it then leave." Thats still the most popular.