Super Strength for Stalkers?

Invisible horror that sneaks up behind a guy and BAM! crushes his skull between two Mighty Fists(tm) is a logical(ish) horror movie monster concept and thus not TOO far beyond the realm of reasonable for a stalker type character. It seems reasonable to me that Stalkers the AT can be as capable of the sneaky movie monster as they are of the ninja type.

Personally I don't play much in the way of stalkers, but that's no reason not to at least look at the possibility of SS Stalkers.

HELLZ YEA!!!1

It'd be so ridiculously awesome, it's frightening! All they have to do is replace Hand Clap with Assassin's FALcon PUNCH with an alternate animation of Assassin's Skull Squisher (basically, Hand Clap but with an 'Ahz openin' mah arms ta hug ya' animation) and the set is complete.

Personally, I think the funnies part is smacking a guy with a hunk of rock out of nowhere. It'd never get old, I'm telling you!

Funny thing is that if we were allowed to add screen shake and/or fire visual effects to powers, you could make a tolerable knockoff with the I16 alternate animation they gave Martial Arts AS.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

um... no. Rage wouldn't work very well with stalkers. In fact, it's extremely unlikely you'll see Super Strength on Stalkers for this reason.

If you take a quick look through all the Stalker melee sets and compare them to existing Tank, Brute, and Scrapper sets, you might notice a couple of themes. All Stalker sets contain the powers Assassin's Attack at level 6, Build Up at level 8, and Placate at level 12. Ever single set, including Martial Arts which renames Build Up to Focus Chi. The reason why each stalker set has these two powers is because of the point of Stalkers. The point of a Stalker is to do massive single target damage to a single enemy, then get out of the fight as quickly as possible. A Stalker... believe it or not... STALKS. (Definition 2)

When you look at the melee sets of Tanks, Brutes, and Scrappers, what you might notice is that not every set has a build up, and not every set gets a build up at the same level. For example, Dark Melee doesn't get a build up, but it does get Soul Drain at level 26 on scrappers and brutes, and level 28 on Tanks. Claws and Dual Blades don't get Build Up either, but they do get Follow Up and Blinding Feint at level 8 for scrappers and brutes, and Tankers get Blinding Feint at level 20.

These are the sets you would need to compare to the stalker sets. When you check out Dark Melee, Claws, and Dual Blades on stalkers, the set specific powers of Soul Drain, Blinding Feint, and Follow up are completely removed. Instead, the Stalkers get Build Up at level 8, Placate at level 12, and an Assassin Attack at level 6.

So, if we carry over what the developers have done with these sets to Super Strength... I think you can already see the problem. Super Strength doesn't get Build Up. Super Strength gets rage. Now, one of the things you might notice is that Super Strength is actually down on power compared to other single target sets. Lets use Energy Melee and Stone Melee on Brutes as an example with their level 50 values

Damage / DPA

Super Strength
Jab: 28.36 / 26.51
Punch: 41.71 / 34.76
Haymaker: 68.40 / 45.60
Hand Clap: stun
Knockout blow: 148.48 / 66.58
Taunt: no damage
Rage: +80% damage: perma-able
Hurl: 68.40 / 27.36
Foot Stomp: 59.22 / 28.20
---------------------------------
414.57 / 229.01

Energy Melee
Barrage: 55.05 / 41.39
Energy Punch: 41.71 / 50.25
Bone Smasher: 68.40 / 45.60
Build Up: +80% damage 10 seconds
Whirling hands: 41.71 / 16.68
Taunt: no damage
Total Focus: 148.48 / 44.99
Stun: 10.43 / 5.79
Energy Transfer: 346.59 / 129.81
------------------------------------
712.37 / 334.51


Stone Melee
Stone Fist: 41.71 / 50.25
Stone Mallet: 68.40 / 42.48
Heavy Mallet: 95.09 / 58.34
Build Up: +80% damage
Fault: stun
taunt: no damage
Seismic Smash: 148.48 / 98.99
Hurl Boulder: 68.40 / 27.36
Tremor: 41.71 / 12.64
------------------------------------
463.79 / 290.06


Now what these numbers show is that in outright base damage, other Single Target Sets have far more total damage than Super Strength. They also retain higher damage counts when you actually start figuring out how much damage they put down per activation. The base DPA split between Energy Melee and Stone Melee is 44.45. That's lower than the base split between Stone Melee and Super Strength, which is 61.05.

The point here is that Super Strength needs Rage in order to remain damage competitive. With Rage, Super Strength has a total adjusted damage (414.57 + 80%) of 746.226, and a DPA of (229.01+80%) 412.218.

Now, this damage boost is countered by the rage crash, in which your avatar goes into a weakened state. So the actual sustained DPA, even if you are able to "perma" rage winds up being around the same as other high damage / single target sets.

****

Bringing this back around to Stalkers: Rage is a critical part of the Super Strength Set. It is one of the unique definers that separates the set from say... Energy Melee. That's a problem when you start thinking about a Stalker version since Rage is an auto-no-go. A stalker version of Super Strength would swap out Rage for Build up to fit the Stalker play-style of huge burst damage, get out of the fight. So, you'd have to drop Rage for Build Up, drop Taunt for Placate... and my guess is that if the devs did a Super Strength Set, they'd drop either Hand Clap or KnockOut Blow for an Assassin's Attack. I suspect that if they did proliferate the set, Hand Clap would be changed to a single target stun.

Anyways, the basic problem stands. Most of the sets without a separate build up power that have been ported to stalkers, such as Dual Blades, Dark Melee, and Claws... features that make the sets unique have largely been kept intact. Spines, for example, is an AOE powerhouse compared to other stalker sets. Dual Blades kept the combinations. Dark Melee kept the status affects and gained a more reliable damage and to-hit boost even though it lost endurance recovery.

Super Strength... well... it would lose it's defining feature. For that reason, because of Rage, it's extremely unlikely you'll ever see the set on Stalkers.

Thanks for turning a silly, only semi-serious thread into a numbers game.

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

Semi-serious?

Silly?!

You guys are ridiculous if you think proliferating Super Strength to Scrapper and Stalker is silly.

As for Je_s evaluation, it's only relevant if you figure the devs can only proliferate straight or that a set will remain identical. No, the devs are free to alter power orders, numbers and overal effects within a set when proliferating from one AT to the next.

Example:
-The entire Claws set. All the Brute numbers are different from the Scrapper numbers. Eviscerate on Brute has -def, Eviscerate on Stalkers is Single Target.
-Energy Melee. Energy Transfer does not crit like normal attacks, instead only forgoes the self-damage when it does.
-Fire Melee. Replaces Combustion with Cremate.
-Dual Blades. None of the combos on Stalker are the same as the other melees. Ablating is a pseudo-PBAoE attack that completes the Sweep combo in an auto-hit area attack if the basic attack lands.

So all those numbers you threw out there, useful when pondering why the devs haven't already proliferated this set (because it's not a simple port). However, it proves nothing on the position that SS cannot be proliferated. I will admit, I'm not sure how they will eventually get around to it but I hope they get to it without replacing too many powers.

To port the set, it may be 'overpowered' to have Rage as it is now. But that hasn't stopped the devs from changing Rage before. It could be a similar boost as Build up but slightly longer. Or perhaps using new tech to make rage only a 10sec dmg buff but a 'perma' boost to crit chance. And for Stalkers, simply adjust the numbers on the attacks and make Rage into Build up. Also, I can already tell you, SS would lose Hand Clap for Assassin's Strike. That's exactly what they did with Elec Melee dropping Thunder Clap.

As for Stalkers not getting it because of thematic reasons; That reason could fly for Shield Defense (the thematic representation within *this* game may prohibit that set but not the concept of ducking behind a shield so oh well) but *DOES NOT* for Super Strength. The set is about hitting stuff hard. That's what a Stalker does. End of discussion. And if Scrappers can request SS with a straight face despite them being the similar finesse style combatant as a Stalker, then there is no reason to call someone requesting the same set for Stalkers 'silly' or 'not serious'. I'm dead serious.

My toons are pretty merit dry but I think I've figured it out how to pull it off with what we already have in the game:

• Fist of Annihilation animation on AS
• 2 Air Bursts slotted in Caltrops or another Targeted AoE power
• Kinetic Combat: Knockdown Bonus proc in AS

FoA animation for the Falcon Punch motion. Kinetic Combat proc for the chance to knockdown. Air Burst set bonus boosts KB so it changes from simple KD to full on KB. Should be nicely viseral if it kills them and should offer moderate control if it doesn't.

I plan on trying this when I get the sets...

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

If they do this, I want the sound on the SS/ stalker's Build Up to be Shao Kahn shouting, 'FINISH HIM!'

That just sounds silly for a stalker. I mean, a character that moves around in the shadows? If you think about the AT, I think "Sucker Punch" makes more sense personally.

I disagree with both of you, it needs to remain FALCON PUNCH!