What Changes are needed to make Stalkers an acceptable addition to a Team?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-07-03 19:14 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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8 team members hitting the guy all at once with concentrated fire because all the trash minions and lts are already dead will kill him much faster than a stalker.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING in the game can kill an annoying boss faster than a stalker. It never takes mine more than 3-4 hits to kill one. (depending on resistances)
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ST damage is useless most of the time when all the game is about AOE fights. It only matters for AVs and there it's all about the whole team, debuffs, and not a single stalker dps. I'd rather use the 3-4 hits to wipe a whole spawn then finish the boss with half health.
Dark armor lover.
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It's the hit and fade then hit again that is the issue. Specifically the "fade" bit. Stalkers don't need to fade when they're with a team. Stalkers are plenty tough, with backup, we don't need to run or fade, we can stalk in, then scrap until the mob is dead, then stalk to the next one. Combining early removal of key threats, and sticking out the fight with the team, we get the best of stalker and scrapper playstyles.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Stalkers are single target specialists, and excel at hit and fade, then hit again playstyles. Unless you're farming I'm sure you can find a place for that on your team.
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Well, unless you're Spines/, in which case you're not so much a single target specialist as you are a perambulatory explosion.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Stalkers are single target specialists, and excel at hit and fade, then hit again playstyles.
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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on liberty, never. LAst nigth we ran the mothership twice, our team had a stalker, im an emp, i was thrilled, because with buffs he could do significant damage to the bigger rikti, and with my powers i could make his lower hp meaningless. |
Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Freedom and virtue.
So you guys are telling me, that you have never been in Cimeora or Grandville, seen someone call out in Global TF LFM DPS 6 spots, and have a stalker advertise repetatedly while the team fills? I was just on a TF last night where I had to Beg my way on, and once I joined the team the Leader says "I usually don't take stalkers." This stuff happens and it is not isolated. |
The problem, such as there is, is that there are now 4 melee at's(5 if you count night wids, though they do have some range too) having them shine at something that is always useful for every team is just not going to happen, people just have to accept that in coh even is someone is not bleeding edge optimal, they still are more than enough for the challenges set forth in the game. maybe a brute or scrapper last night would have given more aoe damage, but who cares, the stalker did his job, and we all had a good time, im not going to hole up in a mountain so spreadsheets demanding that specific mathematical levels be reached to have fun, and i daresay that most players are the same. Even the minmaxers dont seem fully crazy, they just don't want a teammate with none of their marquee powers.
If anything its the newer and less experienced players who think they need to bring an m1 abrams tank to a knife fight that would have this misconception, not experienced vets who know what they are talking about.
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Quoted for truth. Most of the time people looking for some specific builds for TF's are doing it because everybody else does it that way. I only have moderate success trying to get people to not min max TFs, usually asking why they want some specific AT or powerset will lead to them begrudgingly willing to try something different.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Stalkers (well played of course) are always acceptable on a team.
Your problem is that you're just exceptional at rooting out idiots on teams. |
Unfortunately, red side the players tend to be... worse. Frankly, I give up and play blue side.
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LOL|
Originally Posted by rsclark
8 team members hitting the guy all at once with concentrated fire because all the trash minions and lts are already dead will kill him much faster than a stalker.
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When I team with my stalker.....the boss dies before the minions and LTs do, so the concentrated fire never happens. Seriously, BU+AS - Placate - Midnight Grasp - Siphon Life = 90% of the time a dead boss. And it takes maybe 6 seconds.
And I was referring to any single character, not a full team. No single character in the game can kill a boss faster than a stalker. Even my brute, who is a beast, takes longer to kill them, even with a full fury bar.
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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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That's still unfortunately all anecdotal.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
LOL
When I team with my stalker.....the boss dies before the minions and LTs do, so the concentrated fire never happens. Seriously, BU+AS - Placate - Midnight Grasp - Siphon Life = 90% of the time a dead boss. And it takes maybe 6 seconds. And I was referring to any single character, not a full team. No single character in the game can kill a boss faster than a stalker. Even my brute, who is a beast, takes longer to kill them, even with a full fury bar. |
How much faster?
How much more damage is the Stalker doing?
How much more damage vs. a Scrapper in the same situation?
What primaries are being compared here?
Nothing will change opinions like hard numbers.
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No, Castle chimed in on a thread about it at the time. They know it's like that and, at the time, were perfectly happy with it.|
Originally Posted by Jabbrwock
I don't even play Stalkers and I find that silly. You'd think that would be a (relatively) trivial fix to make. Is there a case to be made that allowing Stalkers to benefit from max HP buffs proportionally as much as most other AT's would make them overpowered? Or are we just looking at a consequence of overworked devs putting a problem that is not massively game-breaking on a back burner for a while so they can develop and test other, more important updates?
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It particularly annoys me on Regen, because Dull Pain slams into the cap with minimal heal slotting. DP is a meaningful part of Regen's non-"oh crap" survival toolkit, and the nearby cap truncates the lion's share of that benefit.
A lot of people chimed in that a cap is a cap, and Stalkers were better off anyhow because of the HP buff, both of which are really non-starters in the argument, IMO. Other Stalker powersets with +Def and +DR benefit in an exactly proportional way from increased base HP, but Dull Pain in particular got its proportional benefit reduced.
Ultimately the best defense of this that was raised was that there was no clear need for Regen Stalkers to have to have the fully Dull Pain benefit in order to be viable, so no change was likely to be forthcoming.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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So they do have non-standard HP caps? And if so, does anybody know how to calculate them? I was dealing with this very issue the other day, since the HP cap formula given on ParagonWiki was giving me drastically different numbers than what I was seeing on my Stalker when my combat attributes screen said I was maxed.
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
I think when they upped the Stalker base HP, they didn't also raise the cap, which doesn't help with some buffs and powersets that can increase HP (and are supposed to benefit from those abilities).
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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What? So they're capped HP all the time, instead of keeping DP on auto like others do.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
No, Castle chimed in on a thread about it at the time. They know it's like that and, at the time, were perfectly happy with it.
It particularly annoys me on Regen, because Dull Pain slams into the cap with minimal heal slotting. DP is a meaningful part of Regen's non-"oh crap" survival toolkit, and the nearby cap truncates the lion's share of that benefit. A lot of people chimed in that a cap is a cap, and Stalkers were better off anyhow because of the HP buff, both of which are really non-starters in the argument, IMO. Other Stalker powersets with +Def and +DR benefit in an exactly proportional way from increased base HP, but Dull Pain in particular got its proportional benefit reduced. Ultimately the best defense of this that was raised was that there was no clear need for Regen Stalkers to have to have the fully Dull Pain benefit in order to be viable, so no change was likely to be forthcoming. |
Instead, they use Dull Pain as a self heal when needed (admittedly like others do).
And really, not all Regen Stalkers are HP capped, as not all Regen Stalkers are optimized with set bonuses or all the +HP accolades.
Not that I'm against more buffs for Stalkers. I've run SFs (including ITFs & LGTF) with Stalkers, but I also know some players who would never willingly invite them to the team.
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So, 3 seconds longer than the blaster nuke or the bu+shield charge from 60 feet away before you even manage to run over there?
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
LOL
When I team with my stalker.....the boss dies before the minions and LTs do, so the concentrated fire never happens. Seriously, BU+AS - Placate - Midnight Grasp - Siphon Life = 90% of the time a dead boss. And it takes maybe 6 seconds. |
I feel that Stalkers are 1 trick ponies. Assassin Strike, Placate, Assassin Strike then play like a Scrapper. I like Stalkers, I really do. But they aren't up to par with Scrappers or Brutes. They don't have to have the damage out put of Scrappers or Brutes but they sure do need something to make up for that fact. The +3% critical for each ally is very cool and all but it's still crit chance. Which makes it unreliable and it doesn't improve Assassin Strike damage, just out-of-stealth attacks.
Whining about everything since 2006.
Ammo switching for Dual Pistols was my idea:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=135484
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Yeah, and while that blaster's nuke is in its 3+min recharge window and sucking down blue pills, the stalker can still be removing bosses quickly.|
Originally Posted by rsclark
So, 3 seconds longer than the blaster nuke or the bu+shield charge from 60 feet away before you even manage to run over there?
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As for Shield Charge, it's an anomaly that will be fixed soon. As much as I love mini-nuking stuff all the time, even I didn't lean on it like a crutch with my MA/SD scrap, Stone/SD brute or SD/DM tanker. In this circumstances, it'll just *help* the stalker drop the boss faster. When SC isn't in play because its recharging? Stalker still dropping bosses...
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Actually, it does increase AS damage. If placate is used (I don't consider placate 'in stealth'), it basically adds the Assassination bonus damage ontop of AS while still counting the team +crit% bonus resulting in a chance to Double Assassin's Strike (which is actually the Assassination damage + 2x AS's damage). Probably a bug that will get fixed later, it's still pretty awesome. I've dropped bosses from full to around 10% HP like that at times. One follow-up attack finishes the job in those circumstances.
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Originally Posted by Vel_Overload
The +3% critical for each ally is very cool and all but it's still crit chance. Which makes it unreliable and it doesn't improve Assassin Strike damage, just out-of-stealth attacks.
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You missed the point by about 5 light years. Because they hit the cap, they cannot have the proportionally larger amount of HP the power could give them previously. They should have both the base HP increase and the full proportional bonus of Dull Pain, because that's what they got before, and other Def and/or DR based sets get the full proportional benefit of all their powers, just as they did before.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
What? So they're capped HP all the time, instead of keeping DP on auto like others do.
Instead, they use Dull Pain as a self heal when needed (admittedly like others do). |
Running around stuck at the cap means that Dull Pain provides less proportional survival benefit than it did previously. Before your base survival was S, and with Dull Pain it was C x S. Now it's C' x S', where C' is larger than C and S' is smaller than S. Other powersets that do not include large +HP in their survival tools just got C' x S, for whatever S was in their powerset.
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| And really, not all Regen Stalkers are HP capped, as not all Regen Stalkers are optimized with set bonuses or all the +HP accolades. |
In contrast, a Scrapper using Dull pain can benefit from the full slotted effect of the power and still have room for another ~20% bonus HP on top of it. (Tankers and Brutes both get Dull Pain in non-Regen powersets, and are even further from their caps.)
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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To put it simply: sets like SR, DA and Ninjutsu get 100% of their survivability when Stalker's HP was changed but sets who hinge their mitigation on bolstering Max HP (EA, Regen and to a lesser extend WP) got their performance hacked off after a point.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Running around stuck at the cap means that Dull Pain provides less proportional survival benefit than it did previously. Before your base survival was S, and with Dull Pain it was C x S. Now it's C' x S', where C' is larger than C and S' is smaller than S. Other powersets that do not include large +HP in their survival tools just got C' x S, for whatever S was in their powerset. |
On a SR build, if you pick powers and slot so you're softcapped to all positions, do you still take Elude or do you skip it for another power? Now keep that choice in mind and apply a hypothetical 30% defense to all in Hide for every armor set so nearly every Stalker can softcap defense with power choice and slotting.
Well, in a way that's a bad example, though I know why you used it. It's hard to get sympathy for someone who's at the defense softcap. DR and DEF cap examples like that were brought up in the prior discussion to explain why it was fine for Stalkers to hit this cap.
The issue with that logic, of course, is that Dull Pain's survival benefit, as core as it is to Regen's operation, is miles away from the benefit seen by running against the Defense or DR (soft) caps. It also has a radically different stacking mechanism.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
To me the answer to the OP is simple:
Nothing.
Because a stalker serves the same purpose as a scrapper or blaster on a team (Damage without team support powers). Do either of those ATs need help for teaming? Nope.
I do agree with most others that there is a perception issue that is made worse because there are too many stalker powersets that are devoid of good AOE attacks. Because you are spines you should put that in your LFT notes. I indicate that I am a Electric/Nin stalker, and I seem to have picked up a few friends that shoot me an invite when they see me on because they know I can pump out as much AOE damage as a fire blaster on crack.
TF PUGs will always be more picky. If I was running a TF and had limitless players to pic k from I would pick members in this order:
1 Tank or Brute,
Defenders,
Corruptors,
Controllers,
VEATs,
MMs,
And then
Stalkers, HEATs, Blasters, Scrappers, Brutes, Doms, (if I couldnt find any more ATs from above)
and the worst would be
More tanks.
So best case would be 1 tank and 7 defenders in my book. But all of this is because of how buffs and debuffs stack in this game, but being an RO member I dont need to tell you that.
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I don't think it's entirely a perception issue. Because the stalker inherent relies on teammates being within 30 feet of the stalker to boost the crit rate, it's still probably the case 9 times out of 10 that a Scrapper will even beat a Stalker on sustained single target DPS on a full team of eight.
At the very very least, Stalker Build Up should be 100%. I would guess that it isn't for historical reasons due to PvP, but these reasons would no longer apply since powers can now behave differently in PvP and PvE. I also wouldn't mind seeing that 30 foot radius stretched a bit.
None of this means Stalkers aren't acceptable. I think they are. I'd caution against anecdotal evidence though. These days, you can do some pretty wild stuff with IOs. I even had someone on a recent ITF privately message my nin/nin stalker at the end with, "Congrats on being the toughest person on the team... including the tank." (though to be fair, it was one of the worst tankers I'd ever seen 
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Neither one of which are going to one-shot a boss. The blaster loses their end bar, and can't attack right away, and the Shield Charger has to swing a few more times to drop it. |
Originally Posted by rsclark
So, 3 seconds longer than the blaster nuke or the bu+shield charge from 60 feet away before you even manage to run over there?
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Shield Charge will do 504 damage MAXIMUM, no matter how much damage buff you put on it. A boss has just a few more HP than that.
My stalker reliably kills bosses in 3 hits, some take 4-5 if they heavily resist negative energy. Freak tanks take a bit more killing because they tend to heal before I drop them. But he kills them faster than anything else I have in my roster, and I'm not some newb who doesn't know how to build a character either.
In answer to a previous question about my claim, my stalker and my brute are both Dark Melee, and they are slotted more or less the same. Even though my stalker has a bit of a disadvantage because he is 6 levels lower than the brute, he still kills bosses faster.
Besides, that's all kind of moot anyway. The question asked is "What changes are needed to make a stalker an acceptable addition to a team?"
The answer is none, because whether or not a stalker is acceptable has more to do with the teams definition of "acceptable" than it does anything concerning the stalker.
If your definition of acceptable is "must put out above 200 AoE DPS" then not much at all will fit that criteria. If your definition is "fights along with everyone else and doesn't cause teamwipes" you'll find that suddenly your number of potential teammates skyrocketed.
The game is NOT so difficult that you need to min/max the composition of the team to succeed. Insisting that every character on the team be capable of ridiculous amounts of AoE damage is needlessly narrow-minded. A stalker can shine in just about any team setting outside of farming....but since no one ever seems to invite them no one knows it. If you're running a Strike Force, you're going to fight something at the end or it that a stalker's single target DPS will come in handy for. And the stalker will get his kills throughout it as well.
So, no, stalkers don't need to be changed to be an acceptable teammate, team leaders just need to lighten the hell up on their requirements to invite people.
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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. |
It is the same issue with stalkers that scrappers have - in almost every case any other AT would improve the team more.
Choice between a Stalker and a Corr?
A corr brings tons of damage, Buffs or Debuffs things a Stalker does not do.
Stalker and Dom?
Perma-Dom? Dam and control.
Stalker and Brute?
Brute wins.
Stalker over MM?
Buffs and damage. Often at Corr level damage and the same buffs.
Show me one AT where you can say between a Stalker and this....the Stalker is better. You say well the better player obviously wins! Yes, sitting in Cimerora building a Pug ITF - how do you know?
You don't. So teams choose the lesser of evils and a bad stalker is the worst of evils. A bad corr may not aplly speed boost enough - a bad Stalker is often dead.
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While I might agree with you, there are some retarded corrs,controller,defender players. |
Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
You don't. So teams choose the lesser of evils and a bad stalker is the worst of evils. A bad corr may not aplly speed boost enough - a bad Stalker is often dead. |
So what would you rather have a stalker that can stay in hide and not die a lot, but dies once in a while.
Or a bad kin corr that doesn't buff anyone or themselves and just wants to blast and dies infinity billion times?
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...and a bad MM or Brute gets everyone else killed while they can get away with not knowing what they're doing and surviving. Which is probably another thing concerning AT popularity--Dominators and Stalkers generally have to pay for sucking (though I'll admit that some stalkers can literally hide away from the action). Brutes and MMs have a huge margin of error for the player not actually being good.
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Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
A bad corr may not aplly speed boost enough - a bad Stalker is often dead.
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I'm currently levelling an Elm/Nin Stalker, and if I didn't have Thunderstrike and LR to look forward to, I probably would have scrapped the character already.
That being said, I'd be very interested if you had any DPS figures for any stalker primaries benefiting from surrounding teammates for crits.