So... Stalkers.

1) Stalkers rely on stealth as defense:
a) Once you are hidden you should have zero aggro
b) Hidden status needs to be online with 2-3s out of line of site of aggroed mobs
c) Placate should be an AoE
2) Stalkers are damage dealers:
a) They need to have equivalent or better damage to the higher Def/Res Scrappers
b) Burst damage should be their mainstay, but they need have sufficient sustained DPS that they are not overlooked by TFs
c) Burst damage should be fast, the animation/interrupt times on Build Up and Assassin's Strike are a tad long
3) Stalkers are sneaky:
a) Stalkers need to be faster when stealthed (movement buff in hide please).
b) Clicking a glowie should have a chance per second of taking them out of hiding, or a stealth debuff, it should not automatically remove them from stealth
c) Ambushes need to be ditchable (see 1a and 1b) and have a chance to spot rather than auto-spot

That's the way I see it, and while it incorporates some of what was said prior, I want to reiterate that Stealth should be our mainstay, and as such there need to be some game-mechanic changes that allow Stalkers to be Stalkers.

I just have to voice my opinion on this matter.

I really like some of the ideas posted above, like reducing AS cast time and adding more debuffs. I would like to see the demoral effect of AS be much more reliable. I agree with the 75% chance for mag 2 fear and 25% chance for mag 4 fear. As well as the -to hit buff.

I also agree that hide should not suppress when attacking similar to EA's energy cloak and Illusion's superior invicible. And maybe adding +res to hide for those sets that use resistance instead of defense to give them a little more survivablity. Right now, I don't have much appeal to make any resistance based stalker just because not getting hit works so much better with an interruptable AS. The only res based set I went with was DA because a feared opponent does not attack.

I have always thought that stalkers should be the masters of stealth and the stealth cap should be higher for the AT because of that. I also have the same reasoning for defense based ATs having a higher defense cap than nondefense based sets. Why roll an SR when I can roll a WP and get added survivability by soft capping my defense and having +regen, +HPs and +resistance for when I do get hit. So why roll a stalker when I can just get a stealth IO and take super speed or stealth and ghost past any mobs I want.

I think maybe placate should have a percent chance to confuse your target for maybe 5 seconds added to it for when you placate on teams so squishies don't immediatly take all the aggro. I do not agree with an AoE placate just because Nin already has one and it's one of their tools for taking that secondary. I support lowering placate recharge.

I think stalkers should be focused on mainly ST damage and should stay that way. I know a lot of you don't agree but I like the mechanics of a ST damage dealer the way stalkers are designed. But AS should have a lower activation time and placate should have a lower recharge time. So effectivly I could AS -> placate -> critical -> placate -> critical so it would almost be like AoE but still not. Quickly taking out enemies in a mob but just not all at once.

I think damage and survivablility on a stalker right now are fine. Though the HP increase without raising the cap did take away one of EA's nitches in having a +HP teir 9. So maybe raise the cap but leave base hps where they are.

Finally, I agree that AS should have added effects on it like end drain and siphoning power like was mentioned previously. Maybe even make the secondary effects AoE to add a little more control and give these secondary effects a power like swap ammo. If I click Assassination, nothing changes: demoralize with AS and criticals while hidden. However, maybe I change my swap ammo-like power to another setting and now instead of criticals, I have a secondary effect that happens 100% of the time when I attack while hidden. This secondary effect would be dependant on your primary and I haven't thought about what they could be.

That is what I think. I just wanted to get my opinion out there so that a red name can mark another one up for support of stalker revamps.

Necrotizing makes a good point about Assassin's Strike, although I would go a different way with it.

Assassin's Strike is essentially a cookie-cutter attack, 7/10 have the exact same cast times, all of them have the same interrupt and recharge times.

I would recommend that they have secondary effects,

Broad Sword > -10% Def (10s)
Claws > Placate
Dark Melee > -11.3% to hit (10s)
Dual Blades > Already part of two combos, this is already acceptable.
Electric Melee > -10% Endurance -100% Recovery (6s)
Energy Melee > Mag 3 Stun (11.9s)
Kinetic Melee > -17% damage (10s)
Martial Arts > Knockdown
Ninja Blade > -10% Def (10s)
Spines > AoE DoT (Toxic), -Rech, Slow

In principle Broad Sword, Ninja Blade, Martial Arts and Spines should have cast times of around 3s, Dark Melee, Electric Melee and Energy Melee around 2.67, Claws, Dual Blades and Kinetic Melee around 2.33s. With an Interrupt of 1-1.5s except for Claws which should have no interrupt. Recharge times should stay 15s for Broad Sword and Ninja Blade, be dropped to 12s for Martial Arts, Spines, Dark Melee and Energy Melee, and dropped to 10s for Dual Blades and Kinetic Melee and be dropped to 5s for Claws.

That would add flavor to the different sets that is much needed, given that Build Up and Placate would be difficult to modify in a meaningful way.

I'm coming to this thread way late, primarily because I rarely team, and even
on those occasions that I do, it's only as part of a duo, so I have nothing to
add from a teaming perspective.

From a solo stalker perspective though, I do have a couple thoughts.

1> Survivability is fine. Honestly, any time my stalker(s) have died it was
cause I screwed up. Either, I bit off way more than I could chew, or I
made tactical mistakes, and even in the first case I can usually escape
(unless the alpha gets me)...
That's the only time they ever die, so I don't see an issue here...

2> Placate - the only issue is the so-called bug against pre-queued
attacks. I *really* wish they'd change that... If I placate before attack
occurs (ie. not queued, but executes), then it stops that attack and
works properly. If they can test LoS on an AS before completing the
attack, they should be able to check Placate the same way.

3> AS - I'd be ok with the suggestions on (slightly) more damage, but I'd
prefer a change that makes the power useful out of hide. Apart from the
initial strike, where it's WAI, it's simply not all that useful in a normal chain...
Maybe it could be non-interuptable out of hide, or something, but right
now, for the most part, it's use once and forget it during any "scrapping"
portion of the battle. For a "signature" power, it's substandard in that
particular case.

4> Hide. I really like (Sam's?) idea of insta/quick hide if I break LoS. That
really adds to the tactical feel of the AT, with a mechanic that would be
unique and encourage more use of terrain features in combat. The idea
of "blending into the shadows" if you take your eye off the stallker seems
pretty consistent with the AT's intent to me.

I'm mixed about a straight up damage scale buff across the board, and I
don't feel we need an HP buff. Some of the other suggestions seem pretty
OP to me <shrug>.

Interesting discussion though...

Regards,
4


PS> ...and I really dislike the change they just made to
Stealth IO's -- That is a truly hateful issue for PvP (If it
was made to fix a PvE problem, fine, but set it back for PvP situations)

Here's a thought for a mechanic:

If I drop out of LoS of a mob, it will try to get to where it saw me last.

If when it gets there I am not in LoS, and I am hidden, it loses me.

So you can't lose a mob just by running around a corner, but a second corner is enough to "lose" it -- it can no longer figure out where you are.

Basically, if I run around two corners before the thing chasing me makes it around the first corner, and I've gotten into "Hidden", it should lose me. It might keep moving around, but it should no longer have the automatic ability to target me and attack me. I hid.

I think that would pretty much deal with 90% of the soloing trouble stalkers have.

That's a problem with the ambush mechanics and not specifically stalkers although they are affected by it the most.

Ah that's an issue that to be honest only comes up in praetoria.

My most recent character in Praetoria is a Stalker, and while I do believe we have it easier solo than most classes, purely because of Hide and AS, the ambushes can be a nightmare for any AT, and Stalkers only get half a pass, against the location-based ones, not the character-based ambushes. But as far as playing in a Scrapperish/Brutish sort of way, that's not our thing. Even though we _can_ fight like that, we're not on the same level as either of them in that department.

I know some people bag on Stalkers because they are inferior to Brutes and Scrappers for outright melee, they represent a certain play-style that is still fun for others. Like others, I believe we need some improvement for PvE, to make us more usable on teams. Not to make us exact clones of Scrappers.

While I certainly like what a Stalker offers, I just feel the AT gives up too much for little benefit.

Here are some of my issues.

1. Ambushes - They just know where you are. I just avoid missions with ambushes in them as much as possible.

2. Competition from other ATs. Plenty of other ATs do more damage and offer more utility to a team. Bane Soldier being the best example. Leadership toggles and plenty of damage with stealth strike.

3. Stalker Hide is easy to replicate - Stealth IOs, concealment and super speed.

4. Power selection is tight since Build Up, Assassin Strike and Placate are supposed to be the signature AT powers. (heck I would argue that post 32 I would just respec out of AS and Placate)

5. There was a better version of the current Demoralize but it never got off test server. It ended up getting scaled back to what we currently have.

My suggestions

Quicker fixes

1. Reduction of animation time on AS and Placate.
2. Increase BU from 80% to 100%
3. Improve Demoralize
4. Improve Crit chance per teammate and increase the radius that it works.

Other fixes

1. Time to look over Assassin strike. It should be faster and more usable in a team. It shouldn't be just an opener and become an afterthought after 32.

2. Some other utility for a stalker to offer to a team other than just DPS. Something +to hit buff, +damage or +defense for the team.

I think I have one solution...

Give Assassin's Strike a healthy dose of -Regen, just like the devs did back in the day for debuff sets.

It got the the point that the only defender/controller secondary anyone wanted was Empathy, right? So the devs made it to where if you want to take down tough targets, you needed a debuff set with -Regen with you.

And it's been rather binary ever since. "Want to do the LRSF? Bring lots of -regen debuffs." Hopefully that can then become "Want to do the LRSF? Bring lots of debuffing sets or a Stalker."

Check, are we all in agreement on the following points?

1) once you break LoS, you should be hidden
2) aggro should not break hidden
3) AS and Placate need to have shorter cast times
4) a -regen proc needs to be added to AS (to allow both burst damage and AV killing capabilities)

most seem to agree with the following

1) increase BU buff
2) improve group buff (range and/or value)
3) removing interrupt time from AS

does that sum up the state of affairs?

Should AS be able to be slotted with Sniper Enhancements? It is a sniping attack, and all other snipes can have their interrupt mitigated, except for AS.

8s is a pretty long timer...

As for my proposed AS fix of lowering non-crit damage, it is a compromise. AS has limited use outside the first strike. Decreasing cast time while decreasing non-crit damage will make it balanced yet viable, while maintaining crit damage at the same as it currently stands will not break balance but will allow it to continue its current level of usefulness.

As far as the -regen proc. It is less about team AV fights and more about solo AV fights.

Stalkers can already be valuable members of AV team, even if some idiot non-stalkers don't think so, but the difficulty the -regen proc is meant to address is solo-AV fighting.

I also proposed some interesting ideas on how to differentiate AS between different sets a dozen or so posts ago. Take a look.

I'd like to point something out.

At least in Praetoria, ambushes ALREADY don't aggro on a stealthed stalker. They run to where they were triggered, then stand there if they can't see you.