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You're supposed to follow up with an explanation of why you think that way, not just try to throw insults for the hell of it. Otherwise, it kind of defeats your point..| Calling the kettle black? Or however that dumb saying goes. |
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| If you're so sure of that, explain it. Give some examples. Throw some numbers. Something. |
Brutes have total control of their damage, anything they will waste is because they want it wasted or don't care. Barring a build up proc IO, a brute will always do the same expected damage with an attack.
With their 10% chance to crit, scrappers will have more overkill damage than brutes, and less than stalkers.
No matter how you try to spin it, if your weakest attack does 80 damage, and a foe has 80 hit points left, in your hypothetical perfect scenario with 7 teammates all in a 30" range, there's a 31% chance you crit and waste 80 damage. How much more overkill damage does a stalker exactly is debatable, but the fact that he does is undeniable. This is how random works.
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| It's 6 seconds, love. That was changed with all the other stuff on Stalkers. And 2 seconds makes a huge difference, so don't even say it. I've sat around reading Scrapper discussions debating about something like .4 DPS differences in builds and chains. |
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| And Sio said: |
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| All the more chance to make a bigger impact on your smaller team? If there's only 3 teammates, chances are there will only be 1 boss. Having 1 teammate drop that boss in seconds before anyone else can drop an attack is a huge impact. |
Look, some of you guys really need to get a grip on reality. I like stalkers. I play stalkers. I think they are just fine and viable as teammates. I am just reacting against the absurd argument that, because stalkers have the highest possible damage under perfect circumstances, they supposedly have the highest possible damage on "many, many team situations", to quote someone. This simply isn't true, and this is the only thing I'm debating here.
Trying to switch the topic and cover the holes in your argumentation by labeling me as The Great Satan stalker-hater will fall on deaf ears, as far as I'm concerned.
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| Don't speak part-truths. |
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| Don't go spreading that Stalkers will be completely outclassed. |
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| Finish your sentence. |
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| Stalkers will be outclassed in AoE by AoE focused builds. Although a Stalker can contribute to AoE damage, a Brute or Corruptor or even Dom will out-AoE one. But really, the same can be said about Scrappers if you exclude very specialized builds (really just Spines/Dark and Spines/Fire). |
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| But then if you think, the people bringing issue about Stalker's viability are coming in with the perspective of min/max, perfect team, speed SF, AE farmers or whatever. If you're going to be talking in the voice of a min/maxer, you have to know the numbers to min/max and it's obvious these people don't. It's like someone throwing around advice about money yet they don't know anything about taxes, investments, pension or anything that involves money. |
You can't start something with "this is the best DPS" and complain because people argue against it from a "best DPS" point of view. That's the whole reason they're arguing in the first place.
I'd advice you invest in a stopwatch before you tell people what they obviously know or don't know, too.
Best Regards.
Ok, that last line was just because whoever nerdrage-redrepped me with "y so srs?" made me laugh. GRR ! How dare Nihilii says stalkers aren't the ubar best evar at DPS !!! I know, I'll tell him by red-repping him ! HAH !
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I think the verb you were looking for was "to address". Yes, I just addressed everything Siolfir just said.| Did you just ignore everything Siolfir just said? |
Last but not least, he also failed to account a specific kind of power no stalkers have access to : damage auras. Anyone using Hero Stats and a damage aura can tell you it'll usually account from anywhere between 10 and 20% of total damage output.
"Not all brutes have damage auras !"
Tough. This is a discussion about the highest potential DPS, and the brutes with the highest potential DPS are brutes with damage auras, just like the stalkers with the highest potential DPS are stalkers on full teams where all teammates sit in a 30" range.
"A powerset issue is completely different from a teammate issue !"
Different in what way, one of them advantages the stalker and not the brute so it's OK to include it, but the other isn't so it's best to forget it ?
If you go further than simple base mods for ATs, you're not going to get to the highest possible DPS with Dual Blades (for example). It is implied the best powerset available for the task is used.
Now if you add AoEs into the mix, this doesn't look well for stalkers, but that's not the topic - at least I hope it's not, or Siolfir is even more out of touch with meleers than I thought. I assumed the whole thing was about ST DPS and rolled with it, as this is the situation where stalkers are competitive.
I've pretty much said anything I could on the topic and am not interested in discussing it further (especially as half of the "points" are either factually wrong or random insults from emotion) so you'll excuse me if I "ignore everything you just say" past this point. On the bright side you can pretend I left because I couldn't find anything to reply and highfive each other, make up a story about me being a stalker hater or something so you don't have to refute my points. Everybody wins.
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I really doubt this argument has any bases. By your logic and in that situation, with an attack that does 80dmg, the Scrapper is wasting damage by simply activating it as his damage mod for attacks is 1.125. Any extra overkill damage is balanced (with the less crits of Scrapper) by being able to control the output of your crits.| No matter how you try to spin it, if your weakest attack does 80 damage, and a foe has 80 hit points left, in your hypothetical perfect scenario with 7 teammates all in a 30" range, there's a 31% chance you crit and waste 80 damage. How much more overkill damage does a stalker exactly is debatable, but the fact that he does is undeniable. This is how random works. |
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| It is 8 seconds. Period. Anyone can check it easily in game, even if they don't have a stalker ; create a stalker on a server where you have a free slot, get hit or attack something, time the time it takes to get back to hide with a stopwatch. I'd question your own experience with the stalker AT if you believe it is 6 seconds, as there is indeed a very large difference between 6 and 8 seconds. |
The rehide time was changed along with adding demoralize effect, base crit rate and improved melee dmg mod. Are you sure you even play stalkers? Because it's pretty well known that this change was made forever ago.
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| I can't see how this is any relevant to any of what I said in this topic. |
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| All my sentences are finished. Yeah, ok, I don't get that one. |
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| Completely irrelevant to my argument, but OK, if you say so. I'm only concerned about the claim that stalkers have the highest DPS based on damage numbers, couldn't care less about compare and contrast with AoE builds. |
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| I am reacting to the idea that stalkers having the best potential damage leads somehow to them having the best damage, as this idea either ignores the difficulties in reaching the exact conditions needed to get to this damage level or ignores game mechanics that will lead to a lower result. |
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| I'd advice you invest in a stopwatch before you tell people what they obviously know or don't know, too. |
Looking at the stalker guides, it says that stalker hide suppression was reduced *to* 8 seconds not *from* 8 seconds so I suppose I was wrong. Counting in game, I usually only need 3 seconds before activating AS then by the time it goes off hide unsupresses. I would have sworn AS had an activation of 3 seconds, not 4.
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Damage auras are nice, but Stalkers give that up for Hide to get more burst. Anyway, damage auras, even though they are great overall damage, may not save you hits and cause you to make even more overkill if the amount of actual hits on the enemies doesn't change. Does the group need 4 Footstomps to lay down or 3 Footstomps if I have the damage aura on? If the number of required hits doesn't change, the damage aura isn't really doing anything, albeit showing doing high damage on programs such as HeroStats. AoEs that "recharge fast" (You're plinking anywhere from 10 to 40 damage in or more each 2 seconds in AoE)|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
Last but not least, he also failed to account a specific kind of power no stalkers have access to : damage auras. Anyone using Hero Stats and a damage aura can tell you it'll usually account from anywhere between 10 and 20% of total damage output. |
That being said, I do like my Lightning Field because of the enddrain and Elec Melee doesn't really do much overkill in general so the damage does come into good use.
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| Tough. This is a discussion about the highest potential DPS, and the brutes with the highest potential DPS are brutes with damage auras, just like the stalkers with the highest potential DPS are stalkers on full teams where all teammates sit in a 30" range. |
You probably don't even need them all to be in range if you have your other tools to gain extra crits that were not taken into account in Siolfir's math. Hidden first strike and placate can grant you free crits at your will.
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"A powerset issue is completely different from a teammate issue !" Different in what way, one of them advantages the stalker and not the brute so it's OK to include it, but the other isn't so it's best to forget it ? |
If there is no "I" in team, having people around you should not be a problem, especially in a highly competitive team. TEAMmates will stay near Stalkers so they can flip out and kill things.
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| If you go further than simple base mods for ATs, you're not going to get to the highest possible DPS with Dual Blades (for example). It is implied the best powerset available for the task is used. |
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| Now if you add AoEs into the mix, this doesn't look well for stalkers, but that's not the topic - at least I hope it's not, or Siolfir is even more out of touch with meleers than I thought. I assumed the whole thing was about ST DPS and rolled with it, as this is the situation where stalkers are competitive. |
The Stalker can also pick a Patron AoE from either Mu Mastery or Mace Mastery, filling the lack-of-AoE hole. Going by the Disruption Blast, from hide, it's either 111.22 or 55.61 damage base, depending on if it crits or not, averaging 83.415 damage base in a 15' radius. Not all Stalkers get innate AoEs, so that's a pretty sweet deal. It isn't the ideal AoE DPS that other ATs have, but gives nice burst that will help getting the minor enemies down in record time.
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| I've pretty much said anything I could on the topic and am not interested in discussing it further (especially as half of the "points" are either factually wrong or random insults from emotion) so you'll excuse me if I "ignore everything you just say" past this point. On the bright side you can pretend I left because I couldn't find anything to reply and highfive each other, make up a story about me being a stalker hater or something so you don't have to refute my points. Everybody wins. |
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I would like to belive that anyone inviting you on a team just wants you to have fun but this really isnt the case most of the time sadly. As for strategy the only amount of it this game has is "Let the tank get the aggro, drop heals on tank". I agree that i would love to see this be the "General attributes everyone who plays this game have"
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Originally Posted by Largo
To the person who wanted educated on why to invite a stalker:
Im not trying to be snarky, but, how about fun as a reason? If the person playing the stalker is fun to have on the team, has fun playing his character, uses interesting tactics and strategy you don't always see, finds a way to use an underused power to full effect, helps you to complete your missions and stays around to help you complete multiple tasks, how is this not useful in a team? These are all just general attributes I would love to see everyone who plays this game have. It matters not really what archtype the player is, if he plays it well and has fun and lets you have fun, isn't that a good teammate? |
Screw the tank!
Unless you mean a Dom. Whew, those doms can tank. Seriously, I think an Earth Dom can tank like 4 spawns at once over the aggro cap, mind you. Throw a quicksand on the ambush coming around the corner, earthquake another group, volcanic gasses another, stalagmites +ST hold another and Salt crystals whatever you can't be bothered with at the moment.
My point: there are no tanks in CoV. There is only damage.
Tank-centered strategies in CoV... What a waste! The typical teams I know just use whatever damage mitigation they might have and disintegrate spawns at a pace that makes any serious attempts at tanking meaningless.
And yes, stalkers do their fair share in the killing.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
Relying on a single Rad or Kin it can pay for a Brute to play like a Tanker, doing enough to maximize AoEs but I wouldn't call such teams typical.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Dunno, on freedumb when I was running through cap usually the pug broadcasts for A(o)E farmin' in Cap would be like "NO STALKERS NO MMs"
no aoe = no love 
I dig my DM/Nin, can lay the beatdown just fine, but never exactly been swimming in group invites compared to any other AT. Seems most players still don't appreciate stalkers can tear the heads off baddies just fine ever since castle buffed them.
It might sound childish, simple-minded, or perhaps even completely stupid but perhaps the mentality that we think Stalkers aren't useful is because...well....we don't see them do a lot. Because... they're hidden... half the time....
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"And my scrapper is still lagging behind some blasters; scrappers are useless I tell you!"|
Originally Posted by Necromatic
I still find that I am lagging behind some brutes.
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Can I facepalm in here? I can? Cool, thanks.
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That just tells you that you didn't want to play on that team anyways. Anyone who'd turn down either of those ATs for AoE farming is down right ignorant; why waste the time finding out what other (possibly harmful) ways they're ignorant in as well?
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Originally Posted by Iannis
Dunno, on freedumb when I was running through cap usually the pug broadcasts for A(o)E farmin' in Cap would be like "NO STALKERS NO MMs"
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AE Farming teams =///= Normal teams
Any statistics people might bring up for them are irrelevant when comparing one to the other. Seriously.
Stalkers, as are all ATs are not 'perfect'. No AT is 'perfect'. It's a little thing called balance. Besides, it entirely depends on who is playing the stalker and how they have made it, because I've seen a few stalkers within the group I play with a lot that can slaughter entire spawns before the Brutes even got near. And vice versa. Its the same with any AT, it matters more on the player.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I would like to throw this out. Its not so much the AT, but the person who uses it. My ele/wp stalker is better than most brutes on my server, point being, they have no idea how to slot, or utilize their powers. I am speaking from experience when I say that, ANY AT that is dismissed based on what that AT is, is pure prejudice and/or ingnorance.
Case in point: MoLRSF 6 man team(the other two quit):
Stalker enrg/ea
MM zombies/poison
MM soldiers/traps
Corr fire/ice
Brute ss/invul
Dom grav/enrg(me)
Unlikely combo wouldn't you say?
Well, we had double stacked vengence, and our icy corr really new what the hell she was doing with great single pulls.
The damage factor came with the stalker doing nothing but ASing heros and we got the job done. No Kins, Stones or rads.
Second point: Im an AEoholic(im not getting into why, thats another post coming up). I run teams with my ele/wp stalker and most times carry the team through EXPERIENCED play. I have seen enrg/stone brutes that died so much, you thought they were going for a debt badge. I also have seen a soldiers/traps MM out play most ATs based on pure skill.
Give me skill over a powerful AT any day. You can throw numbers at me all day, but in the end, they are worthless, if the person at the other end of the screen is lacking skill to use those numbers.
Tender hearted disclaimer:
This post was not directed at anyone, it also was not meant to prove anyone right or wrong or, to challenge anyones ego. If you are offended by this post, go take a powder and read readers digest, or, go mope in your room and listen to the Jonas Brothers on your ipod.
B
I've played more stalkers then any other AT in CoV. I can tell you that the Stalker AT, post-buff WILL outdamage and outkill a Scrapper in Every single instance. Not only does the increased Crit chance really add up, there is the safety factor.
No matter how much damage a Stalker cranks out, they will never peel agro from a Brute or tank or any agro holder. Which means they are free to concentrate on killing, nothing else. Scrappers will at times attract far more agro then they can handle, and need to spend a few precious seconds activating a heal or repositioning to minimize incoming damage. A Stalker never needs worry about this. I have stood side by side with a Tank AND Brute during Invincible ITFs and LGTFs and never once been noticed. And I have doth Resist Secondaries at 50, I know when I'd get hit. There have been team wipes where I clean up the mobs while waiting for the team to rez, in absolute safety.
Honestly, there is no reason I would take a Scrapper over a Stalker if I had to choose only one.. the Stalker will benefit the team and COMPLIMENT a team far better. A Scrapper brings nothing more then damage to a team, a roll that can easily be filled by blasters or even tanks with the right support. A Stalker brings surgical strike ability, speed, even defense in the sense that the tanks and brutes can worry less about squishies since a Stalker can jump back and eliminate a threat to the back line before the agro holders even register the danger. Bosses are a non-issue with Stalkers onboard, allowing the Brutes and Scrappers to wade into the rank & File where they shine. On any half competent Stalker, the boss will be down and out before the Scraps even get warmed up.
"Well, there's going to be some light music and a short note of apology saying, 'The universe ended last week, we're really sorry, we don't know what you're doing here, didn't you get the message?'"- Steve Moffat
Wow, this thread is still going? Yeesh. I think everyone who's still reading this can agree that Stalkers aren't useless and have a place in a team.
But one thing I did want to poke fun at:
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Did you put in a bug report if you got the Master badge in that situation? Because I'm curious why you'd mention it otherwise - it's not like oddball teams haven't completed it, temp powers or no.|
Originally Posted by beyond_CoV
Case in point: MoLRSF 6 man team(the other two quit):
Stalker enrg/ea MM zombies/poison MM soldiers/traps Corr fire/ice Brute ss/invul Dom grav/enrg(me) Unlikely combo wouldn't you say? Well, we had double stacked vengence, and our icy corr really new what the hell she was doing with great single pulls. |
But other than that, I agree with the sentiments expressed in the rest of your post: the usefulness of any teammate is more related to the player than the AT.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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But then if you think, the people bringing issue about Stalker's viability are coming in with the perspective of min/max, perfect team, speed SF, AE farmers or whatever. If you're going to be talking in the voice of a min/maxer, you have to know the numbers to min/max and it's obvious these people don't. It's like someone throwing around advice about money yet they don't know anything about taxes, investments, pension or anything that involves money.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.