Weaponized Defense AKA Devices/Traps for Stalkers
By
ChaosExMachina,
Posted on: 2009-10-05 09:28 in Suggestions and Ideas
I like this idea. It may mean I'd have to re-roll my Stalker but it would be a nice alternative from the other Stalker sets that fit Natural Stalkers.
Why would you want cloaking device and hide though?
Friends don't let friends buy an ncsoft controlled project.
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It could save ya a power pick and power pool choice if you pvp, no stealth would be needed then.
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Originally Posted by Noyjitat
Why would you want cloaking device and hide though?
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Remove PFF and cloaking devise for something else and it sounds pretty good. Personally I don't think a stalker should be able to get PFF. With all the good epics it can pick up (hibernate, shadowmeld) PFF is a bit too much. And two stealth powers in one set just doesn't make sense.
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Here was my initial thought process:|
Originally Posted by SmegHead
Remove PFF and cloaking devise for something else and it sounds pretty good. Personally I don't think a stalker should be able to get PFF. With all the good epics it can pick up (hibernate, shadowmeld) PFF is a bit too much. And two stealth powers in one set just doesn't make sense.
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In some ways, Cloaking Device is meant to be for the extra defense since this is a rather offensive minded set. It can hold Defensive enhancements/IOs while the stealth itself will be good in PvP and against the select few enemies with +perception that don't ignore stealth outright.
PFF was meant both to make it unique and to try to make it more survivable at lower levels due to the aforementioned lack of defense and since the set lacks a heal.
I can see the problems with the two. I think Cloaking Device's biggest problem isn't Hide. It's Hide + Smoke Grenade + PFF combined which gives a sizable combo of stealth, perception debuffs, and a +def that might as well be a phase. PFF is sort of on the other end with the combo of powers possibly being too good for the concept.
I'm thinking of replacing Cloaking Device with a move similar to Detention Field. It helps maintain the offensive flavor and it stays pretty unique. A DF clone could remove the need for PFF since it fits the same initial concept. PFF could then be replaced with a less powerful defensive move that keeps in line with the set's theme. Perhaps a +def version of Stimulant that has to be repeatedly applied.
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But utterly useless in PVE, which is where most people are in-game. |
Originally Posted by Lucky666
It could save ya a power pick and power pool choice if you pvp, no stealth would be needed then.
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In any case, secondaries for stalkers tend to be more defense/etc, so I'm not *sure* trip mine and the like would be there. I wouldn't *argue,* I just wouldn't expect to see it. And besides that... why not take /ninjutsu, which already has two armors, a self heal, smoke powder, blinding flash... it kind of is "devices" designed for a Stalker.
Edit: Just saw the "thought process" post. I don't know, I think I'd go more the *other* way. PFF - to me - isn't helpful on a Stalker at low levels specifically from the "can't attack" bit. If you want a more device-y set, dropping a lot of defense, I'd go for something with more of a decoy/misdirection theme.
Unreleased powerset:
http://paragonwiki.com/w/index.php?t...3AGears+&go=Go
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
Interesting, I wonder how that set would have worked out. What's interesting is that it actually looks like it might have had two different stealth abilities (Cloaking Device and Chameleon Suit). Decided to tweak my concept a bit, especially after something Bill said and after seeing something in that Gears concept:
- 1. Hide
- 2. Personal Stimulant
- 4. Holographic Decoy - Summon a "hologram" pet (essentially a Male/Female/Huge Illusion) that has a taunt aura, a slow component with the same stats as Caltrops, and a set amount of its own HP. It can not attack but it can be healed by allies. Only one from the same player may be out at a time.
- 10. Armored Bodysuit
- 16. Smoke Grenade
- 20. Tactical Goggles - A toggle that increases perception and to-hit. It also has an Against All Odds style damage buff for the more enemies enemies in melee range up to a max of 10.
- 28. Seeker Drone
- 35. Emergency Serum
- 38. Trip Mine
Remember - Stalker sets are Melee Defence sets first and anything else you want to make them a far, far second. Ninjutsu is about as far as you can go into the utility side of things, and it cheats a little by unifying so many protections in so few powers. Aside from a minor passive resistance power, you have no resistance, and since you're going to be in melee all the time, that's just a death sentence.
I can support a Stalker set that's gadgets-based, but NOT with that choice of powers. I'm going to need at least two shields, a status protection power and a meaningful final power (Trip Mine is NOWHERE NEAR meaningful). That, plus Hide, gives you four powers to play with in terms of utility, and I'd axe Smoke Grenade altogether. It's an unbelievably crappy power which gives a meaningless to-hit debuff (compounded by your not including defence in the set) and -perception, which is largely useless on a Stalker. Granted, probably two or three enemies in the entire game can see through hide, but having an entire power in a powerset devoted to combating that is not a good choice.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Wibble...|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
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WHY was that not included in game? It sounds awesome, just from the names!
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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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So, where exactly is the "defense" in this set? You have...a High Pain tolerance clone.... and that's it? If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to scrap to survive (fighting Rikti with Drones present) you're boned.
Sneaky or no, stalkers ARE still melee fighters and should be able to hang in melee combat better than your average blapper, which is how this set looks.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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What's more, the Stalker changes of recently seem to have been intended specifically to allow them to scrap better. Any Stalker must be able to scrap at least reasonably well, and for this he needs defences. Remember - Stalker secondaries are still billed "defence," not "support."
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
So, where exactly is the "defense" in this set? You have...a High Pain tolerance clone.... and that's it? If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to scrap to survive (fighting Rikti with Drones present) you're boned.
Sneaky or no, stalkers ARE still melee fighters and should be able to hang in melee combat better than your average blapper, which is how this set looks. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'll admit that I was aiming for something a bit more glass-cannonish than most sets but that was more of the aspect of making a set that was actually different for a change. I wish I knew who said it but a point was made on the forums that scrappers essentially play the same while defenders are practically different ATs. I feel that most ATs have room for a powerset with more overt differences.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Remember - Stalker sets are Melee Defence sets first and anything else you want to make them a far, far second. Ninjutsu is about as far as you can go into the utility side of things, and it cheats a little by unifying so many protections in so few powers. Aside from a minor passive resistance power, you have no resistance, and since you're going to be in melee all the time, that's just a death sentence.
I can support a Stalker set that's gadgets-based, but NOT with that choice of powers. I'm going to need at least two shields, a status protection power and a meaningful final power (Trip Mine is NOWHERE NEAR meaningful). That, plus Hide, gives you four powers to play with in terms of utility, and I'd axe Smoke Grenade altogether. It's an unbelievably crappy power which gives a meaningless to-hit debuff (compounded by your not including defence in the set) and -perception, which is largely useless on a Stalker. Granted, probably two or three enemies in the entire game can see through hide, but having an entire power in a powerset devoted to combating that is not a good choice. |
Trip Mine was a lot of the reason behind the creation of the set since I felt a Stalker is the AT that would get the most use out of it due to stealth and having a high damage modifier. Personal Stimulant was the set's status protection power but it has to be repeatedly applied to yourself as opposed to being a toggle. Tactical Goggles is to aid in the offense but I think it would be best to go ahead and add the enemy -damage effect like Against All Odds has.
Since Smoke Grenade doesn't have the placate effect Smoke Bomb does, I can conceed to losing it. Taking another name from the Gears set, I'll add Kevlar Body Armor as a Shield Defense -> Deflection clone.
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The problem is that's not exactly true. It's an interesting viewpoint from Defender players playing Scrappers, but having grown up on Scrappers, myself, I can safely say that they do not play alike at all, neither primaries nor secondaries. That said, even if you want to introduce a difference in the set, making it incapable of doing what a Stalker's secondary is supposed to do - keeping him alive - is a really bad way to achieve it. This was demonstrated beyond question during the creation of Shield Defence, where the set was originally intended to work on its gimmicks, but underwent SIGNIFICANT increases in performance before it went Live.|
Originally Posted by Zamuel
I'll admit that I was aiming for something a bit more glass-cannonish than most sets but that was more of the aspect of making a set that was actually different for a change. I wish I knew who said it but a point was made on the forums that scrappers essentially play the same while defenders are practically different ATs. I feel that most ATs have room for a powerset with more overt differences.
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I don't mind a set that emphasises utility the same way Dark Armour does, but only if it has SOME survivability for that utility to assist in. Just melee and utility sounds like a different AT altogether.
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| Trip Mine was a lot of the reason behind the creation of the set since I felt a Stalker is the AT that would get the most use out of it due to stealth and having a high damage modifier. |
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| Personal Stimulant was the set's status protection power but it has to be repeatedly applied to yourself as opposed to being a toggle. Tactical Goggles is to aid in the offense but I think it would be best to go ahead and add the enemy -damage effect like Against All Odds has. |
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| Since Smoke Grenade doesn't have the placate effect Smoke Bomb does, I can conceed to losing it. Taking another name from the Gears set, I'll add Kevlar Body Armor as a Shield Defense -> Deflection clone. |
Basically speaking, though, Ninjutsu is about the LEAST protection I want to see in a Stalker set. Any less than that, and it runs into dangerous waters.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Smoke bomb is incredibly useful. Amongst numerous fighting uses, it allowed me to solo a Ballista. Full EB con and all. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I've never been very much convinced of the merit of Smoke Bomb, but it IS useful from time to time. If you're looking for a clone of that, that'd actually be one item I'd wish to stay. Granted, I still prefer your Body Armour idea, but I think you could replace something else with it. Basically speaking, though, Ninjutsu is about the LEAST protection I want to see in a Stalker set. Any less than that, and it runs into dangerous waters. |
Ninitsu makes up for it with a self heal (on a goodly fast recharge) and with blinding powder. Blinding powder is great when you watch a mob tear itself apart, while you tear THEM apart.
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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 was looking through this just now and thinking to myself that I remembered the devs talking about a new gadget based stalker secondary ages ago ... and then it never happened. Of course, this was around the same time they were talking about a new mastermind primary being in the works (seriously, this was ages ago, back before NCsoft bought out Cryptic IIRC). We're just now on the cusp of getting to see a new mastermind primary, so I'm somewhat hoping that there's more powersets on the way with GR and they've only just confirmed the two.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Wibble...
WHY was that not included in game? It sounds awesome, just from the names! |
I can dream can't I?
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
From what I can fathom of the unreleased gadget set for stalkers, it had.
Hide: Cloaking device.
Smashing/Lethal resistance: Kevlar Body Armor.
Standard mez resistance for melee character: Delta wave scrambler.
Negative/Energy resistance: Power Shield.
Fire/Cold resistance: Enviro shield.
Self heal: Meds.
Large defensive or resistance buff: Chameleon suit.
Looks like it would essentially be 'fire armour' for stalkers unless it was not resistance but typed defence...which makes it all the stranger.
With Stalkers low resistance caps probably wouldn't be that great but it doesn't give up any defence for offence like fire armour does...
I was going to say (before your edit ) you forgot about energy armor. It kind of looks like it might have been a hybrid resistance/defense armor set. Smash/lethal resistance with elemental/energy defenses with possibly some psi something in the status shield (fits with the name fairly well honestly).
What could have been interesting is if it was really hybrid resist/defense. Put a bit of resistance in each of the shields along with defense (kind of like shield's deflection I suppose). Then increase the recharge on the self-heal a bit and give it a self buff too (medicine doesn't always need to just heal I suppose) and get rid of smoke grenade for an offensively oriented click of some kind (a seeker drone kind of power perhaps). That and the targeting goggles for a to-hit buff and I think it'd be interesting.
You'd have to balance the defense and resistance kind of carefully so it's not too strong or just too all around weak, but still.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
Pretty straightforward concept--the desire to have Devices/Traps ported over to Stalkers as a unique defense set. The name change is really just to help avoid arguments about semantics. Attempted to make something that would have it's own unique feel. Critique on how to improve it or any particular problems is encouraged.
The power for lvl 38 was a challenge since I wasn't sure which fit better. Emergency Serum is the MM Mercs Serum applied to the player instead of a henchman.
Personal Detonator would be similar to Self Destruction but with key differences. It would be a PBAoE with a 5 second timer that is able to hurt the player, enemies, or allies. Unlike SD, the player is not rooted during animation, the to-hit check is done at the end of the move (instead of the beginning), and the player has a chance to survive if they have enough HP.
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