Dark Armor and Cottages

I'm probably not the first, nor am I likely the last, to notice that Dark Armor's two mez toggles are less than synergistic with the classic Stalker playstyle. Perhaps this isn't a novel idea either, but I'd like to suggest for consideration the possibility that Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom be changed into click PBAoEs for Stalkers only. While this does alter the nature of the powers to a notable degree, I'd consider it the least disruptive change to have the desired effect: the powers will still have the same type of effect, the same area, and will accept the same enhancements and sets. Ninjutsu's Caltrops, Smoke Flash, and Blinding Powder show a precedent for Stalkers getting disruptive click powers to complement their defenses.

The fundamental reasoning behind the "cottage rule" is that major changes to powers should be avoided because they create drastic and disruptive effects on those who rely on the power's current function. So I put it to DA stalker players: purely on a conceptual level, would CoF/OG being turned into click PBAoE mez powers be disruptive to your current play style?

I like the suggestion, would me wanna try a /da stalker.

I don't like /da redside (although it's my fav armor) because of the detoggling needs for Stalkers and that the mez toggles hurt Brutes' fury.

Couldn't they just make enemy-affecting toggles suppress while Hide is active?
Note that I have no idea how easy, hard, or impossible it'd be to code this.

The fundamental problem is that turning on CoF and OG before the fight starts notifies enemies who you are attempting to AS, and toggling them on after you have become visible takes too long. There are actually 3 possible changes that would each more or less solve the problem:

Code change - Auras suppress while hidden.
Power change - CoF and OG become click powers.
Animation change - CoF and OG's activation animations are sped up.

I don't know which of these would be the most feasible, but any of them would be helpful.

What about stalkers getting a suppress aura toggle?

The way the two mez toggles work against /DA stalkers is the main reason I've shelved my /Dark stalker for awhile. Can I do without them? Yes, but from playing /DA I know how much mitigation I'm missing, and once in a fight, I can FEEL it.

I tried to talk with Castle about it, but he says the main issue is this: so long as the powers are actively trying to affect foes, which they do while on, foes will aggro. The powers themselves are aggro powers, at least as they stand.

As such,
There are a few ways this could go:

Insta-toggles: I don't care about toggle juggling as much if these didn't have such a long toggling on animation, and could be brought back up quickly. Micromanaging? Perhaps. But better. (This means lowering activation/recharge substantially.)

Clicks:This is the OP suggestion, and has precedent. Look at willpower: an aggro regen aura didn't work for stalkers. As such, they turned the /Will regen into an up-front heal. I don't see how such a switch is bad. An aggro foe attack-reducing mez isn't working, so an up-front click mez with a long enough duration would be helpful.

Dual power: this is odd, but hear me out. The power gets split into two: One has the Aura/activation, the other has the aggro-making mez. The aura has one purpose: instantly turn on/pulse the mez when the stalker is visible, and stop doing so while the stalker is in the hidden status. So while hidden, the stalker isn't revealed...because their mez is "off."

No aggro: This is less likely to happen, but throw in the "mass hypnosis" treatment. Mind/doms can sleep/confuse without aggro...what if a stalker could fear/stun foes without alerting them? It's tricky because it means the stalker could mez foes without retaliation. On the other hand, it's not exactly killing them, so is this really exploitable?

Edit : in answer to DarkGob's post

Whether you have "0 problems with Fury" (what does that mean exactly anyway ?) or not is irrelevant. OG/CoF makes enemies attack less. Enemies attacking less means either Fury generation is slower or the brute has to take suboptimal steps to raise Fury.

Is it significantly worse or not, that's a question worth arguing and certainly depends of the primary used. If it is significant, is the survivability given valuable enough to make the tradeoff worth it is another good question.

For my EM/DA, the answers are easily yes and yes. It hurts my Fury generation, but the survivability provided is enough to make me want to keep (OG ; I don't actually use CoF) up all the time. You can say I don't know how to play my character ; I wouldn't dispute that claim if you wanted to make it. Instead, I'd say other brute secondaries don't require me to know how to play my character to maximize Fury ; so in that situation, brute OG/CoF would be a disadvantage in that it requires skill to use.

I would like to see the mez clicks giving the same benefit to Dark Armor stalkers that defense gives to defense-based stalkers: prevent them from being hit while using Placate > AS in mid combat. This also preserves and enhances the synergy with EM and DM: apply CoF + ToF or a stun + OG to one boss, placate and AS another. If you were mad enough to invest heavily in the Presence pool, you could even apply both PBAoE fear powers and temporarily fear an entire spawn including LTs and bosses.

A hundred times SIGNED!

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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

mez clicks isn't a new idea. Although mez clicks are nice, suppressed offensive auras is the way to go.

Imagine the power. Now if they had a high tick rate one could AS, have his auras hit x mobs, click placate which puts the stalker back in hide and suppresses further aura effects, fire off attack two, more aura effects...

I seem to remember it being said by a Dev that they cant suppress toggle auras while hidden. It can be done with Rest, but that suppresses everything. Targeted Suppression is not possable.

As a DM/DA stalker myself, I'd LOVE this to be changed but I dont know how I would like to see it done, they could, in theory:

Shorten Animation (mentioned already)
Raise the Mag to offset the loss of an attemp every second (Unfair buff?)
Possably lower the recharge but make it unslottable for recharge like One With the Shield

I've tried using them in build before and I have to say they are awsome powers, but the loss of hide hurts a stalkers true potential, they end up as a glorified scrapper.

As the proud operator of an EM/DA brute, I'd be happy to talk about mez auras and fury generation - but not in this thread, please?

At this point, given that effect suppression on hidden is probably not in the cards, the change I think would be most preferable would be to turn stalker OG and CoF into click PBAoE mez powers. Looking at the power data available to me (which could be outdated or incorrect), it seems that OG and CoF take 1.17 seconds each to toggle on. This actually compares favorably with the only PBAoE click fear in the game: Invoke Panic, which has a 1.97s cast time. On the other hand, Invoke Panic is a terrible power, so the only comparison I'd use it for is as a lower bound on performance. So if we left the cast time the same, what would be the pros and cons of the change?

Pros:
- A click mez power is likely to last longer than an aura effect.
- Once enemies are affected, they will remain affected even if they then leave the area around you.
- The effect will not prevent you from re-hiding mid combat via Placate or waiting for the hide timer.

Cons:
- A click mez power will not be permanent out of the box.
- You can be caught by surprise with the power unavailable.
- Enemies that enter the area around you after you cast will not be affected.

Of these, I would say that the ability to re-hide mid-combat is the overriding concern - I find this a key part of my Stalker strategy, but I don't know how important it is to anyone else.

I had the idea for a "fear" toon. Kat/da stalker it was.

I was hopin to capitalize on the new "scare" effect after an AS and then toggle up CoF to fear whole spawns. It didnt quite work the way I planned.
Animation times on starting CoF are horrible and waste the new scare effect and then the cooldown on retogglin it for the next spawn are just as bad.

Id be on board with a revamp of the animation times/activation.
Id rather not see the devs waste resources on recoding the 2 auras into pbaoe clicks.

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Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.