PvP Maddness/Woes

Ok, iv recently started trying my hand at PvP with the I16 rules.

I mainly use my Defenders in pvp and I do rather well.I take out Brutes, Corrs, the occastional Mastermind.However theres 1 advisary I have extreem amounts of trouble with.....Stalkers..

I have issues on all my Defender builds with this AT.

I use Tar patch, and stand smack dab in the middle of it.I get AS'd by a stalker sitting right out of the rings range.

I get told to constantly keep moving so a Stalker cant hit me..... I get hit with Impale for half my health and stopped long enough to get hit 1-2 more times before death.Or I get AS'd anyhow while jumping around on the move and then hit with Focus and killed.

I get on my Tanker, and it turns into a scene from Pitch Black.Nothings around me, then all the sudden I face plant from 6 AS's hitting me either all at once or in a row.I never see what hits me.

Then another of the ****-eyed I16 rule just bugs the holy hell out of me.

The far chance that the Stalker doesnt hill you with his Alpha, you heal it up, or you just get lucky and he misses.He gets away before you can hit him more then once.Thats frickin annoying!Not that its anything new with Stalkers to do the Hit and Run, but why can they get away while being fired apon?Wasnt I16 supposed to make it to where they cant escape so easly?

Im getting fed up with being Stalker Bait.It makes me rather upset that you can only bring a handful of things into PvP and survive.Most of these things I dont care to play.

I decided to take someones advice and make a Fire/EM Blaster...ok...no problem right?WRONG!BIG PROBLEM!Stalkers kill it just as fast if not faster then my Defenders.Theres no point in PvPing if some mouthy angry player targets you 90% of the time because he knows he an 2 shot you and theres not alot you can do about it other then get annoyed.

However, I saw a few build ideas that may make me go full throddle and ignore all my other toons just to get something I can PvP with that will take Stalkers out of the running while im playing.Maybe you guys can give me some pointers as to what would be a good build for this endevor.

First off, theres a few power sets I dont wanna take, just on Princable alone.Such as Archery.

My build ideas are as follows.

Blasters
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Rad/Dev
AR/Dev
Elec/Dev

Tankers
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FA/SS
Elec/SS
Elec/EM

Scrappers
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Spines/Invln
Claws/Dark
Claws/Invln - (My make this one anyhow due to wanting a Vangaurd Sword Claws/Impervium Armor theme.Doesnt disclude any other possible slots for a PvP Scrapper)

Controllers
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Illu/Storm
Illu/FF
Illu/Kin

These are the viable options im looking at for PvP.Any suggjestions or comments?It would be most helpful.

By the way, No, this is not a Trolling post, and ill acctually take suggjestions into consideration.Thank you in advance everyone.

First, go to the pvp boards.

Second, avoid pvp, its retarded now after I13. Seriously.
Everything the devs hoped to accomplish with the new ruleset had the opposite effect.

Of the builds you listed, I lol'd at all of them. There is NO room for concept in pvp. If you wanna be competitive and you wanna play a scrapper its fire/rgn or nothing. And even still its melolee.
Blasters its either fire or psi/em. Being /dev WILL get you killed.
Defenders low health total is their biggest drawback, in addition to their anemic damage.

I havent bothered to catch up to the new post-I13 pvp and dont care to start now. I can still do "decent" with some of my old toons. But if i wanna pvp, I get my fix in other games now. But heh, you might love it.

If you are still inclined to get involved, role a VEAT. With side switching on the horizon; and im not 100% sure of the exact distance, widow/forts perception will enable you to see stalkers from 100 ft out. They still will have DR'd defense and be pretty squishie, but thats the direction Id go. YMMV.

Again, Id go to the pvp boards for more solid/intelligent/better advice though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

Dark Armor is HORRIBLE in PvP. It does well against squishies IF you can manage to hit them with Oppressive Gloom, but against another melee toon it gets destroyed. I speak from experience on this one, I have a BS/DA scrapper at 50 and heavily IOed. I might as well not even have a secondary.

If you're having trouble with stalkers on your current toons, rolling any of the things you mentioned isn't going to help.

OK a few cheap tips not sure how much influence you have to spend so. Get the health accolades more health means its harder to take you down and the accolades are free so everyone can get them just with a little time.

Get phase, now you don't need phase from the power pool you can buy a temp power and craft it or go to warburg and run the patrol mish that takes 3 minutes max and last for 30 minutes that's 60 charges minnimum.

That should help some with out actually seeing a build can't really say to much more.

I hear Flurry is good in PvP now. Heaven help us all.

Out of the builds you listed, Elec/Dev blaster, Spines/Invuln, and Ill/Storm are probably your most viable. Out of the tanks, I'd say Elec/SS will probably be your best bet. Good resists and SS has a ranged attack.

AR is laughably bad in PvP.
I have no experience with Rad in PvP, but from what PvE experience I have it probably won't be that great.

For scrappers, /Regen is pretty much the best secondary for PvP. Primary is up to you, but I'd go Spines. If you're dead set against using /Regen, Invuln is WAY better than Dark Armor.

For controllers, consider Mind/Storm, or Mind/Thermal. It has a confuse as well, and it's ST Sleep and Hold actually do decent damage.

I have 1000's of hours in PvP, whether or not you choose to listen to the advice im giving is your choice.

Not goin to the pvp forums where the regular pvp'ers post cuz its "snarky" wont help you either.

But you seem to know what your doin so glhf.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

I play a Rad/Sonic Defender in PvP. You just need practice against Stalkers. It's frustrating, but once you get the hang of them they're not so bad. If you know there's a Stalker and you're not constantly moving with SS/SJ, expect at any moment to loose 1/2 of your health. And, when you do, MOVE! And heal too, whether via powerset heal, Respite, Aid Self, or what have you. If you're a ranged squishie, you need to kite them and keep up the pressure. If you keep hitting them, they cannot enter Hide unless they Placate and then do nothing. If they Placate, back off and keep moving so they can't fire off a second AS. Hopefully they'll throw a Shark or somesuch and break Placate. Yes, it'll crit (whether from Hide or Placate), but it's far better than getting smashed by AS. If you make it through the initial Hide break and Placate, you're pretty much homefree for killing them as long as you don't get a miss streak if they try to Hide again. Some may have Hibernate, however. Oh, and against the Stalkers not stacking stealth, perception will let you spot them. To outdo my Defender's Tactics, a Stalker needs Hide, Stealth, and a Stealth IO, otherwise I can see them at least at melee range.

Now, for the most important question: is your toon IOed out? You don't need purples/PvPs/HOs to be awesome, I personally do not use them and I do just fine. However, SOs do will not cut it against an IOed toon. Period. I'm not fond of huge inf investment requirement to be moderately successful in serious PvP, but it's there. You need IOs and at least the HP/End accolades too. They make HUGE difference. Between my IOs and my resistance toggle, Stalkers cannot two-shot me.

Now, if you really want to annoy Stalkers, I hear Earth/TA Controllers are perfect. They may not get the kills, but Stalkers can't AS through Earthquake (and quicksand too I think) and all those DoTs will prevent them from going into Hide for a good while. I have zero personal experience with this though.


Stalkers aren't a big deal, you just need practice. Now, Dominators... ::rages::

When it comes to stalkers the best thing you can do is keep moving by jumping, never moving in straight lines, and taking every opportunity to move around corners, and jumping over walls to break line of sight.

Out of the toons you have listed the Elec/SS is good (fitness, leaping, concealment, and speed + stone mastery epic.) Tanks are low priority targets for stalkers because they are a bag of hitpoints. The only way you're going to die to stalkers as a tank is if you are not moving and more than 2 attack you at once.

Don't take any of those scrappers into zone.

Out of the blasters you have listed the rad/dev will do fine in zones. Take neutrino bolt, x-ray beam, and cosmic burst (maybe the snipe) from the primary, webnade, caltrops, targeting drone, cloaking device (maybe gun drone) from the secondary. Take speed, leaping, fitness, medicine or leadership (you can be flexible here because you already have a +tohit+per power) and ice mastery (snowstorm, frozen armor, hoarfrost, and hibernate.)


For trollers the Ill/storm but I don't play them so I'll leave that to someone else.

Well, going to the PvP forums and asking a question and taking the advice instead of shooting it down would be your best bet.

Most of what has been said here is valid though.

Psi/EM blasters are pretty fool proof.

/Regen scrappers for melee (I got my DM/Regen to a 400 rating fairly quickly in RV)

Tankers... just have a defense set that makes you a huge bag of health. And taunt.

Always move. Always.

Make sure that your character has some form of perception power. Either from the AT or leadership or an APP. And if you can, put the +perception IO in it as well. That will help with the stalkers a bit.

I have not PvPed with Defenders or Controllers, but having faced both and Corruptors, I have found that some of the debuffs in /Thermal and /Rad that kill endurance/recovery can be huge.

Also make sure you slot a lot of KB protection, because otherwise you may spend a lot of time on your rump... getting killed.

Zone stalkers are for the most part.... really bad.

The fact that you are having a problem with AS and not sharks, points to you more than likely being bad. (Just being honest)

On a decent build I.E with enough HP and KB protection and some sort of escape power (Phase or Hiber) One AS shouldn't be hurting you that much (Maybe 50% of your health?) unless you are really debuffed. Yes this is on a squishy.

I think I saw that you are against IO's? That could be your problem... its like bringing a level 2 tank against tower buffed recluse then complaining you are a tank and shouldn't be getting wrecked. A 1000 HP defender is just easy stalker bait. On a good stalker build against a 1k HP defender you can have the oneshot code come into play....


Once you get your build in order, next would probably be movement. Its easy enough to go through RV jumping from high point to high point, generally just staying away from ground level. Slotting hurdle and SJ for two jumps each helps. When you are attacking? Learn to jump time. Attack at the peak of your jumps so you have minimal time grounded. If you know stalkers are around. Don't be predictable, land on surrounding geography. Even something that requires the smallest jump to get over is enough to buy you the time to get away from an AS. Never plant for an attack and launch another if you know stalkers are around.

Also, learn to LOS when you do ground or hiber. Stalker AS has a few second activation time, if you can break their line of sight during that interruptible period, their power will activate for them but no damage will be applied. Near the Vill base in RV is a great example there are those three different levels to fight on past the Mexican place. As you attack jumping from one to another will break the line of sight from the previous one and keep you from getting AS'ed.

How about the + preception IO in tactics that help would it not

I also wanna IO up a Dark/Dark Defender, it does rather well in PvP.

If you're going to roll one toon to do better vs. stalkers, roll a stalker. Spend some time in RV chasing around the best PvPers you can find, and enjoy your front-row seat in stalker avoidance class. All of your other toons will benefit from this eye-opening experience.