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Uh oh, looks like I may have been off in my harsh judgement of stalkers..
Recently in SC (defiant), numbers swang from mass-villains to mass-heroes suddenly, and trying hard to fool people into thinking im a gentleman, I switched over to my corruptor to help out. Ouch. Harsh awakening, much? Okay, so my corruptor is only level 22, and as per usual, the average hero level was 40+, im sure that cant have helped, but being more focused on the villain side, watching what a single good scrapper or blaster can do was bordering on the scary. This has pretty much thrown me back into the darkness in regards of PVP balance, and im sure its not just the fact that I was getting smothered every few seconds. I still say stalkers are overpowered and still a little too nullifying for my tastes, but having witnessed the ability of scrappers and blasters in a more direct way, its starting to seem necessary. Perhaps I just feel disillusioned or just purely disorientated, I dont know, I just thought i'd post this up here and give the stalkers a chance outside of my PFF to laugh at me. S'only fair 
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See - crime doesn't pay - really, it doesn't
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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See - crime doesn't pay - really, it doesn't
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In comparison to heroics, yes it does. I keep saying, but we heroes dont even get a sodding meal-ticket when we arrest an arch-villain for christs sake.
Heh QIsnake, I distinctly remember fighting character named skullgate not too far back (I wasnt there last night though). Sorry for the beating
Personally I havent seen stalkers as all that overpowered at any time, so I dont mind the I7 buffs they are receiving.. Although I must admit I havent seen stalkers using grant invis or invisibility as much as they should have, despite spending quite a few hours in Sirens call. The one time there were stalkers utilizing grant invis properly was like a revelation to me.. So I may have to retract my statement later.. But so far I still say stalkers arent overpowered, and might need some love instead.. 
Heh, I had a fair old grumble to myself when I spent 90% of the time on the floor. Rad/Dark corruptor, only purpose in those fights was to teleport in, use fearsome stare and cosmic burst, then teleport out if I could. In the end, its all I could do. Im far from getting to grips with the villain side of things, because PvE and hero-side PVP gave a bit of a floored view on how powerful scrappers and blasters are. Just never realised how strong they are (or can be, in all the builds that passed me by), until I was being pommeled by them. Well, I can barely call it a beating when I go down in two (or one, as the case was).
Funny really, to be on the recieving end of my ex-teammates wrath, only to find I couldnt stand up to more than three hits at tops. So much I have yet to learn..
Oh, and forward apologies for the open moaning I did whilst getting beaten. Having a team of heroes camping on top of the crates in the villain base, teleporting hospital leavers up there straight into insta-mez and two-hit-kills (in the case of us without mez protection and squishy HP/def), and then if that wasnt enough, they were calling someone a n00b for droning them throughout the fighting? xP
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See - crime doesn't pay - really, it doesn't
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In comparison to heroics, yes it does. I keep saying, but we heroes dont even get a sodding meal-ticket when we arrest an arch-villain for christs sake.
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But about satisfaction in knowing you've helped keep the City safe?
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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''Having a team of heroes camping on top of the crates in the villain base, teleporting hospital leavers up there straight into insta-mez and two-hit-kills
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Plight's SG:P
..srry about it:P
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, and then if that wasnt enough, they were calling someone a n00b for droning them throughout the fighting? xP''
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that has another reason..it was about lyssa..who's ALWAYS drone TP'ing...ALWAYS...yeah saw her once in the field but thats it..
Hmm about the last bit, there was at least one person on the hero side who was too open with his mouth I remember. Especially with the word n00b. I remember him getting kicked from the team I was in at some point(not by me), unfortunately there will always be people like that, and I apologize on behalf of heroes for such behaviour.
About the teleporting, personally I cant stand droning and dont do it myself (I dont have characters with tp foe atm even). Tp foeing into gank squad is ok from my eyes, simply because more often that not, that situation is easy to escape. The number of times I have been killed with tp foe and NOT drones, can be counted with fingers of one foot. Ok maybe once or twice during the hours Ive spent at sirens call. Tp-ganking wont propably work on me unless you remember to really use those movement-impairing powers like tar patch.. and for some reason villains dont.
I dont camp weak spots at bases either, unless I want to get someone who has managed to escape me several times already. In which case I drop by, do the kill and leave, nothing more.
Out of all the tactics, tping into drones is the only one I cant tolerate (because drones cant be escaped) . But I wasnt complaining about it too loudly I think.
Overall I try to be tolerant to any behaviour because those things pass. There will always be idiots in pvp zones, and we just have to tolerate them. Starting flame wars on broadcast doesnt lead anywhere except loss of enjoyment for everyone, even the good players.
Lets all just take it easy 
ps. I try to lay off attacking people I have beaten couple of times already, but sometimes it just doesnt work, as a.) there usually isnt that much choice to choose from, and b.) I often end up among prime targets for villains so those people keep coming at me, heh.
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Plight's SG:P
..srry about it:P
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Yes, I noticed that. Effective, maybe, but I dont need to use such tactics to get kills.
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, and then if that wasnt enough, they were calling someone a n00b for droning them throughout the fighting? xP''
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that has another reason.. who's ALWAYS drone TP'ing...ALWAYS...yeah saw her once in the field but thats it..
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Yes, well, lets not to get calling names but I almost developed a grudge. Thankfully I managed to kill her(him?) couple of times from near the drones without dying myself.. She ASed me once in the field when i was typing but thats all the non-tping activity I witnessed.
The problems I see are twofold, and like you, I've witnessed this from both sides.
Firstly, playing as my squishy troller, I regularly find myself one-shotted by stalkers. It's got to the point where I don't even care anymore, I've just accepted that it's going to happen - several times. However, is this really PLAYER vs PLAYER? It seems more like "Player suddenly drops dead without warning". The solution? Well tbh, especially when you consider the perception/hide caps, the only real solution to this is to play a character who can take an AS and still stand. This, imho, is why we have a proliferation of Scrappers on the hero side.
However, from my time playing as a villain, I've noticed that there have been situations where 2-3 villains can lay into a Scrapper, and still not get his HP below 70%ish.
In order to make PvP fun for everyone, I think this is where some balancing is required - squishies need to be toughened up a little bit, and the all out attack archetypes need to be reduced a little bit. I'm not advocating this change for PvE, but in a zone such as PvP, it's surely in everyone's interests to balance the characters as much as possible to allow any hero or villain type to have as good as chance as any other?
Maybe capping enhancement slots, in SC for example, would be the answer. As it stands, the exemping seems almost more of a token gesture, especially if higher level players have an advantage through the number of enhancement slots they have.
Ultimately, balancing the archetypes out a bit would probably lead to a bit of whining, mostly from people who can no longer one-shot a hero, or from scrappers who just want to be more uber than anyone else, but I feel it would be good for pvp, and not only would it encourage more players to enter the zones and participate regularly, but would also discourage the practice of only going after the squishies, and totally ignoring any character that looks like it might be a bit of a challenge to kill (this happens a LOT, sadly the villains seem more so guilty of this, but I've also seen swarms of heroes making bee-lines for MMs before), and this will ultimately lead to a much greater archetype diversity within PvP.
Well there is the one-shot-prevention change coming to AS. I have no idea whether its any good, as there has been very little chance to experiment on test server for me. Simply not enough villains (and zones apart from recluses victory are mostly abandoned).
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Well there is the one-shot-prevention change coming to AS. I have no idea whether its any good, as there has been very little chance to experiment on test server for me. Simply not enough villains (and zones apart from recluses victory are mostly abandoned).
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it doesnt work i=or isnt in hammer :/ a stalker AS'd my char (tanaka i'll get j00!!! :P ) in RV with 1 hit doom
and zomg didnt know skullgate was yours mr bubble makerz0rz!
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Overall I try to be tolerant to any behaviour because those things pass.
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Teleganking out of the villain hospitals was happening last November and it's what put me out of the PvP habit. It's a bit disappointing to hear that it's still happening as I'm wanting to get back into it.
The annoying thing with it is many builds have absolutely nothing they can do against it and getting TPed from the hospital, ganked, getting TPed from the hospital, ganked over and over again is no fun at all. Especially when you just want to get out of the zone having accepted defeat 10 minutes ago...
I was kinda hoping this flaw had been fixed months ago.
Well in I7 you regroup your team, pop 4 defense insps each, Squash the silly hero team doing this and run the blockade
edit: actually it works even now.
It doesn't work if you have no insps left (which doesn't take long in PvP) and no mez-protection. On that last occasion I logged out and in again and got out of the zone under PvP protection. It comes to something when you have to use an exploit just to leave a PvP zone
I say teleganking got me out of the PvP habit because I fully intended to go back after levelling up a couple of munchkinised PvP characters and getting a regular team together, but I got distracted by altitis. I still want to get back into PvP but I'll be taking nothing that doesn't stand a chance against hospital camping telegankers.
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Well there is the one-shot-prevention change coming to AS. I have no idea whether its any good, as there has been very little chance to experiment on test server for me. Simply not enough villains (and zones apart from recluses victory are mostly abandoned).
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Doesn't look any good from what I've seen on the patch notes.
If a hero with full HP is hit by a 'one shot' move, they will be reduced to 1HP. If that attack has a DoT component (fire blaster snip for instance), the DoT will still take effect. Meaning you have to be VERY fast with any countermeasure. Seeing as that will porbably be a heal, chances are you're going to die from the follow up attack anyway.
If a hero is just a single HP from full, the one shot will still take effect as they are not at full health.
Given that most people hitting AS will already have the follow up queued, it seems a pointless change IMO as there's still going to be very little you can do to prevent yourself faceplanting.
I'm afriad this is pretty symptomatic of the way zone PvP is. It's a game of kill the squishies until there are no squishies left, then kill the hard targets if you can.
IN MEMORIUM OF GAYBABY
CRUELY TAKEN FROM THIS WORLD WHILE SO YOUNG
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It doesn't work if you have no insps left (which doesn't take long in PvP) and no mez-protection. On that last occasion I logged out and in again and got out of the zone under PvP protection. It comes to something when you have to use an exploit just to leave a PvP zone
I say teleganking got me out of the PvP habit because I fully intended to go back after levelling up a couple of munchkinised PvP characters and getting a regular team together, but I got distracted by altitis. I still want to get back into PvP but I'll be taking nothing that doesn't stand a chance against hospital camping telegankers.
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For some people there is the option of rezzing at SG base too..
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For some people there is the option of rezzing at SG base too..
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For sure, and I'll be doing that and loading up on insps while I'm there. As I said, the episode that got me out of PvP was in November and we had no med facilities in our base then.
Still, teleporting people out of their own hospital shouldn't be possible. Hell, teleporting people out of their side's base/safe zone shouldn't be possible. I'm just surprised that it's still doable after all this time.
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Having a team of heroes camping on top of the crates in the villain base, teleporting hospital leavers up there straight into insta-mez and two-hit-kills
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Well. the reason for this isnt that heroes are so much more powerful than villains, it's that the second one of the sides get an advantage, the other side goes bolting back to the base like there's no tomorrow. After this happens, it's no problemo whatsoever to keep the base under siege and just squash the enemy one by one. Also, if there was a whole team there, then two hit kills isn't that weird, as you have buffs and debuffs and everything, also, it's more than likely that it just looks like a two hit kill as there are so many beating your monkey.
Also, about stalkers not being overpowered... I made a stalker some time ago, and I got it to lvl 24 (I don't have stealth), and still I was flattening lvl 30+ heroes (and regen scrappers) like I was driving a steamroller. I ended up relogging my blaster, because there was hardly no challenge at all, even when we (the villains) were outnumbered 2 to 1. The only thing that even resembled a challenge was to be patient and wait for a hero to stray out of the protective range of the defenders.
Just for reference, there were around 4-5 villains of most AT's, and there were a full team of heroes with at least one defender, a regen scrapper and an asortment of other at's and powersets. Only the regen scrapper gave me some pause from time to time, but I got him at least as many times as the heroes got me.
What I find a bit strange with your 'revalation' Qi, is that you take what happened to you as the norm, while it is often the exception, not the rule. Also, you clearly have more experience playing as a hero, and you can't expect to hop into the oposite side and be just as effective as you are when playing your usual toons. Also, the fact that the villain base was under siege by a whole team of heroes tells me that the fight was a tad off balance in the first place.
There are plenty of corruptors I haven't been able to defeat in a whole attack-cycle even with BU on my nrg/nrg blaster. I'll admit that there are more often where I only need one built up attack-cycle to take a corruptor down, but if you think about this, it should tell you something. What's that, you say? That the inexperienced are the majority, and they will go down pretty fast, while the experienced minority can put up a decent fight, pretty much whoever they fight against.
Now, the same COULD have been said about blasters VS. stalkers, but here there is another factor coming into play, and that is the fact that 95% of stalkers can two-shot 95% of all blasters, and this doesn't give the blaster a chance to fight back, so experience don't come into play. Why? Because the only thing that can prevent two-shotting is the ability to see the stalker, and apart from /devices, no blasters will ever be able to see a stalker without the help of a leadership defender.
And preventing 1-shotting from AS isn't going to solve anything, because 1-shotting from AS happens so rarely in the first place. it's Plactate that is the problem because with it a stalker can 2-shot a squishy -every single time- (unless you have a heal, and are REALLY quick to click it.)
I say, give stalkers EITHER hide OR plactate. THEN they wouldn't be overpowered. Giving stalkers every trick in the book is like begging for a ganker AT. The only thing stalkers doesn't have is loads and loads of hp, and aside from this they have something from every other AT in the game PLUS hide AND plactate AND an insane attack. Great. Just wreck PvP, will ya?
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And preventing 1-shotting from AS isn't going to solve anything, because 1-shotting from AS happens so rarely in the first place.
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My mind troller regularly gets one shotted - the rarity is actually surviving an AS long enough to be placated...
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''Having a team of heroes camping on top of the crates in the villain base, teleporting hospital leavers up there straight into insta-mez and two-hit-kills
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Plight's SG:P
..srry about it:P
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, and then if that wasnt enough, they were calling someone a n00b for droning them throughout the fighting? xP''
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that has another reason..it was about lyssa..who's ALWAYS drone TP'ing...ALWAYS...yeah saw her once in the field but thats it..
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TPing from base and Droning really honk me off, its so pointless, u tp from base, u dont allow opposition to regroup and actually fight you. I assume you want to fight in pvp? What the hell is the point otherwise? you dont get nothing from repeatedly teleporting people to your squad and all it does is piss people off.
Droning is also weak, it means your bounty is so far away again 
that said if people on either side are tping from base then the drone awaits, I dispise this tactic but of you are base TPing and I am there you will get perma droned.
These tactics ruin the zones and I fail to see any fun in them, if I am in the zone when this is going on I will usually swap to the side who is being base TPd, send a few fast PMs and wipe the zone. However I do it in a bad mood and with vitriol as the fun is all gone.
**Acceptable "support" responses**
Its your fault
Its your computers fault
Its your ISPs fault
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What I find a bit strange with your 'revalation' Qi, is that you take what happened to you as the norm, while it is often the exception, not the rule. Also, you clearly have more experience playing as a hero, and you can't expect to hop into the oposite side and be just as effective as you are when playing your usual toons. Also, the fact that the villain base was under siege by a whole team of heroes tells me that the fight was a tad off balance in the first place.
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Oh, I havent taken this quite as the norm, but I made this thread just to give the stalkers i've poked at a little chance to retaliate whilst the getting is good I've already said that its probably down to how the battle was flowing at the time, and the fact I was using a villain of lower average original-level. The main point I guess I was trying to make, was that between PVE and hero-side PVP, I never quite realised there was a shadow in my opinion of PVP balance... one that i've started to explore now i've started to spend more time out in villain PVP.
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Now, the same COULD have been said about blasters VS. stalkers, but here there is another factor coming into play, and that is the fact that 95% of stalkers can two-shot 95% of all blasters, and this doesn't give the blaster a chance to fight back, so experience don't come into play. Why? Because the only thing that can prevent two-shotting is the ability to see the stalker, and apart from /devices, no blasters will ever be able to see a stalker without the help of a leadership defender.
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And as i've said before, just being able to actually target a stalker is only half the battle, actually managing to hit/interrupt the buggers is the next half. After that rather messy siege of the villain base, stalkers were beginning to look necessary. I still think having an AT with that kind of "either you nullify me, or I nullify you" way of living is just a bad idea, because all it does is make either one side or the other feel completely robbed of any fun. Brutes are the only real staple of melee damage that the villains seem to have, even though stalkers are melee damagedealers, they feel far more like loner support AT's to me.
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These tactics ruin the zones and I fail to see any fun in them, if I am in the zone when this is going on I will usually swap to the side who is being base TPd, send a few fast PMs and wipe the zone. However I do it in a bad mood and with vitriol as the fun is all gone.
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I agree in part. Constant TP'ing of choice enemies is a great tactic, just the same as using knockback to keep someone in check is a great tactic too, just the same as droning the worst of an enemys team is the best way to force them to back off. Though in my humble opinion, there is a line where it goes from being a good tactic, to being something that seriously ruins the fun in the name of winning.
When there are -that- many people all crowding around a base, teleporting you out, using diving-one-shots before the drone removes you... then droning is the best tactic you can use. Yes it will annoy the living bejeebus out of them, but thats the idea... if you can force them to back off somewhat, then your side has the option to run into the field -with- them, and thats where the most is normally had. If you have to compare base-anchored combat to the times both sides have somewhat equal numbers, and meet in the middle, every time the combat in-the-field, even with its debt, is far more enjoyable.
As it stands, TP'ing only seems to beget TP'ing. Its like a hand-grenade. One devious person TP's someone into a drone/ganksquad a few times, then sits far far away and watches as every man, woman and their dog starts taking it personally, and makes it into a "who can TP fastest?" competition. Once those kinds of situations rise up, there isnt really much that people can do other than back away from the enemy, or leave the PVP zone... and leaving a PVP zone just because people are using annoying tactics just seems wrong. Getting your rear end handed to you is supposed to be half of the fun, but when your only option to survive is to run to the zones exit-point before your PVP:Off timer ticks down, then something isnt quite right.
On the bright side, at least i've only ever known one person to deliberately use NPC's to take out an enemy. Apparently the devs say its a 'valid tactic' and isnt against the rules, even with debt considered. At least -that- dirty tactic is being left alone enough. A few times, some of the worst TP offenders have taken a break to save an player-enemy from debt, or simply broken combat for a moment (losing their advantage) to prevent another persons debt. It gives me the warm fuzzies to see that 
But I still say debt doesnt belong in PVP zones, at least not full outdoor debt..
So, this thread has no real iron-cast purpose or topic, feel free to twist the subject as you see fit. I think im done.
TP-ganking and Tp-Droning I also agree to find utterly pointless and in my opinion are the major causes of the loss of a good atmosphere in Sirens.
Just a few days ago was enjoying a great time in Sirens, some good battles and a friendly atmosphere (with the obligatory banter though, of course ). However, it didn't last when along came a half-dozen other heroes. Now, overwhleming odds are fine by me, I'm not bothered about rep, I'm there for the fun so if I actually managing to take anyone out isn't of great importance...also I will admit when the odds get tough I will retreat to the villain base and wait for 'strategic' opportunities. On this day however the new influx of heroes decided to start tp-ganking villains coming from the hospital, on a 5 vs 1 ratio and I guess to even the score some villains began tp-droning some of the heroes.
The whole broadcast channel soon became inundated with such whitty reparte as "omg u n00bz r n00bz0rz and ur m0mz a n00b". End of fun, end of post.
Oh, honorable mention to the few heroes I was figthing with prior to the above, was a good laugh 
.
Defiant
Militis Metus << Website
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Spectre - 50 Fire/Fire Blast
Uh oh, looks like I may have been off in my harsh judgement of stalkers..
Recently in SC (defiant), numbers swang from mass-villains to mass-heroes suddenly, and trying hard to fool people into thinking im a gentleman, I switched over to my corruptor to help out. Ouch. Harsh awakening, much? Okay, so my corruptor is only level 22, and as per usual, the average hero level was 40+, im sure that cant have helped, but being more focused on the villain side, watching what a single good scrapper or blaster can do was bordering on the scary. This has pretty much thrown me back into the darkness in regards of PVP balance, and im sure its not just the fact that I was getting smothered every few seconds. I still say stalkers are overpowered and still a little too nullifying for my tastes, but having witnessed the ability of scrappers and blasters in a more direct way, its starting to seem necessary. Perhaps I just feel disillusioned or just purely disorientated, I dont know, I just thought i'd post this up here and give the stalkers a chance outside of my PFF to laugh at me. S'only fair