Even the location specific ambushes can be difficult to avoid when you have a hostage in tow, unless you don't mind spending an hour watching the hostage take one baby step forward, search around, take another baby step forward, search around.......
I had a mission last night where my lvl 9 Stalker had to lead a Reporter all the way through to the back room of the mission and then I had to lead the Reporter and Hostage all the way back to the mission entrance, all the while fighting mobs and ambushes. Ugh....those two kept getting in each other's way, would only walk forward one step at a time before pausing to searching for me, even when I was standing just a couple of steps away (3-4 feet?). If I went outside of melee range to them they would lose me completely. Progress was sooo slow......
Hide doesn't even recharge fast enough for me to be able to turn it on and off in between spawns with out me standing around and waiting before I can tackle the next spawn.
This is my first try at a Stalker. So far I am unimpressed with the enjoyment factor.
Best regards,
Tommy Truestar
My favorite was leading a Knives of Artemis "hostage", through a map full of Knives. The hostage couldn't see me because I had Hide on, but everything else on the map could. I just turned it off between spawns, used Lightning Rod to engage from outside their aggro range after turning it back on, and went back to get apparently the only KoA in existence who wasn't able to track me after the spawn was cleared.
But yeah, leading mobs - either combatant or non-combatant - sucks for Stalkers.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Some are that way. Others are the other way. I've seen both.
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Originally Posted by SkarmoryThePG
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. |
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Except for the ones in Warburg.|
Originally Posted by Siolfir
But yeah, leading mobs - either combatant or non-combatant - sucks for Stalkers.
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I want to know how they pulled it off. The scientists in Warburg can see through Hide + Stealth proc without problems. One interesting quirk is that while it's been proven that Negative Stealth doesn't actually do anything, the scientists in Warburg don't actually apply it. I wonder if it's secretly having a negative affect on the escorts themselves.
I support the suggestion of adding a high mag confuse to Placate. It's not self stackable and would help prevent the problems of placating a foe and it killing a squishy. It makes perfect thematic sense and would fit in well with a more tactical style.
That said, it should only take 4 seconds to return to Hide. It would help with focused damage spikes and hit and run which is what the AT is supposed to do.
I wonder if you might be on to something with that theory about negative stealth. Especially if it works as a granted temp power similar to how Demoralize works.
I have nothing against the confuse effect on placate(even if it means adding an end cost)
Although I think 4 seconds might be a bit too quickly for Hide to comeback.
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The problem Stalkers have leading mobs... indeed the problems ANYONE has escorting mobs out of a map is entirely intentional on the part of the devs. Not just the Warburg scientists, but ANY player-targetted ambush proves that if they want a mob to be able to follow you, stealthed or not... they can do that. It's absolutely not a technical limitation.|
Originally Posted by Zamuel
Except for the ones in Warburg.
I want to know how they pulled it off. The scientists in Warburg can see through Hide + Stealth proc without problems. |
Presumably the only reason they usually don't allow non-combat escorts to see through Hide is that you'd otherwise be able to lead them out past and through enemy spawns, which would be a little odd. For Warburg, I imagine they just figured it would be TOO much of a disadvantage in a PvP environment. Not that it isn't obvious when a scientist is trucking down the road following... no one.
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| I support the suggestion of adding a high mag confuse to Placate. It's not self stackable and would help prevent the problems of placating a foe and it killing a squishy. It makes perfect thematic sense and would fit in well with a more tactical style. |
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| That said, it should only take 4 seconds to return to Hide. It would help with focused damage spikes and hit and run which is what the AT is supposed to do. |
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
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The wording seems to take things a bit out of context and my highest level Stalker is Claws/Willpower so I do scrap a fair bit. I say hit and run more to express the "You do your best work when attacking from ambush, and can even hide in plain sight to escape foes." part of their description. While Mag 4 confuse might lead to a long and hard (though arguably needed) argument with Controllers and Dominators, I think returning to Hide faster is justified.|
Originally Posted by Zem
The removal of a single PBAoE and replacement with a high-damage first-strike weapon like AS does not change the whole character of the AT from Scrapper to Hit-and-Runner. If I'm supposed to hit and run why do I have SIX other attacks and an entire defense secondary... just to make good my escape?
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As far as ambushes, I personally feel they should only be location targeted unless either its due to a sensor/camera system (like the underused mechanic from mayhem side missions) or an explicit trap.
I made a MA/Elec Scrapper. I want to make a serious Scrapper to see what is the big fuse about them. I feel Stalker solos a bit better at lvl 10 but this doesn't mean anything because Stalker is supposed to be the King of Soloer.
I figure we always have this "grass is greener" mentality.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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1. no. If the goal is teaming this is the WRONG method. This will make teams boot us. If a fight starts and we run around the corner. Kick, gone, and not invited back. We need in-melee crits. This is where WoW's rogues have an advantage, all they need is to be behind someone. You can do this in a big fight. Breaking LOS means we have to leave the fight. Great for solo, horrible for teams. horrible for our reputation.|
Originally Posted by Beelzy
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) |
Many alternates are better: using followup/parry as a model, make a placating attack for all primaries that we can work into our base attack chains. Make all tier-1 attacks grant the hidden status without breaking agro. Severely reduce the recharge on placate. Give aoe placates. Allow auto crits vs Mezzed enemies exactly as if hidden (presumably on a chance to crit rather than 100%). Add a flag for an enemy hit by an ally with a melee attack, increased crit chance vs flagged enemies (easest mechanic is melee-range aura granting a power to allies melee attacks, power gives debuff to enemy).
All of these allow us to fight in melee without pissing off the team. Nothing should be changed that will give us a reason to piss off our team (except via us doing more damage than them heh).
2. no. hidden is fine, though a reduction to 5 or 4.5 seconds would be nice, it is ok currently.
3. ok
4. -regen is not useful at all except vs AVs and GMs. -Res much more helpful for burst damage. Even once a freak boss has hit a heal power, they don't regen much. -5% or -10% res would give better burst damage under all circumstances except AV fights and would be comparable even then.
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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 |
2. yes, slightly better range.
3. No. Reduce? Ok. Remove? No. Just no. Not even worth discussing.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
I admit my stalkers love the fact that you can select explosive shuriken now.
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Nin/Nin is now even more Nin. Had a hard time deciding between that pool and Body Mastery though. Stamina + Superior Conditioning + Physical Perfection = Gonna need a bigger endurance bar.|
Originally Posted by Negate
I admit my stalkers love the fact that you can select explosive shuriken now.
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You are right though...Body Mastery seems more appealing then Weapon Mastery due o all that awesome.
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Originally Posted by beyeajus
Nin/Nin is now even more Nin. Had a hard time deciding between that pool and Body Mastery though. Stamina + Superior Conditioning + Physical Perfection = Gonna need a bigger endurance bar.
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Rethinking... alright, how's this for a list that most people would agree on:|
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
1. no. If the goal is teaming this is the WRONG method. This will make teams boot us. If a fight starts and we run around the corner. Kick, gone, and not invited back. We need in-melee crits. This is where WoW's rogues have an advantage, all they need is to be behind someone. You can do this in a big fight. Breaking LOS means we have to leave the fight. Great for solo, horrible for teams. horrible for our reputation.
Many alternates are better: using followup/parry as a model, make a placating attack for all primaries that we can work into our base attack chains. Make all tier-1 attacks grant the hidden status without breaking agro. Severely reduce the recharge on placate. Give aoe placates. Allow auto crits vs Mezzed enemies exactly as if hidden (presumably on a chance to crit rather than 100%). Add a flag for an enemy hit by an ally with a melee attack, increased crit chance vs flagged enemies (easest mechanic is melee-range aura granting a power to allies melee attacks, power gives debuff to enemy). All of these allow us to fight in melee without pissing off the team. Nothing should be changed that will give us a reason to piss off our team (except via us doing more damage than them heh). 2. no. hidden is fine, though a reduction to 5 or 4.5 seconds would be nice, it is ok currently. 3. ok 4. -regen is not useful at all except vs AVs and GMs. -Res much more helpful for burst damage. Even once a freak boss has hit a heal power, they don't regen much. -5% or -10% res would give better burst damage under all circumstances except AV fights and would be comparable even then. 1. yes, equal to scrapper and brute please. 2. yes, slightly better range. 3. No. Reduce? Ok. Remove? No. Just no. Not even worth discussing. |
1) Decrease the cooldown on hidden status to 3-4s.
2) Decrease the recharge on AS and Pl
3) Reduce interrupt on AS
4) -Res proc in AS (-10 to -20 for 10s)
5) BU should be brought to or beyond Scrapper levels
6) Increase range on group buff
Ideas I would be interested in feedback on:
1) AS specialization (having different effects and/or recharge and activation times for different sets)
2) Allowing AS to take sniper enhancements (this is a workaround for interrupt reduction)
3) Making Ninjitsu's Smoke Flash work like an AoE Placate rather than placate and wait
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Just to be clear, Stalker, Brute and Tanker use the same +dmg modifiers for powers like Build Up...so they all have +80% dmg from that power.|
Originally Posted by Beelzy
5) BU should be brought to or beyond Brupper levels
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It's only Scrapper and Blaster that get +100% from Build up and such powers.
I posted way up in this thread during the closed beta, but have since given further changes to stalkers some thought (not the least because of my recent discussions with Leo).
First, I am going to say right off the bat that I'm skeptical of any changes that give us yet another secondary effect added to AS or any other power. With random criticals and scaling percentages on those random criticals tied to team members in range, both a fear and a to-hit effect that is applied to an unsuccessful AS, Hide-based criticals, a small chance for criticals on held/slept opponents (Still there according to city of data), and a placate in every primary, we're in danger of becoming the gimmick kings IMHO. We need improvement. Not more gimmicks.
I also do not think stalkers need help in surviving or soloing. We have all the tools we need for that now. Teaming could use some improvement, but I don't think stalkers are far out of line there, either.
Rather than adding secondary effects on top of the secondary effects we can already achieve, I would like to see stalkers have more flexibility towards using their entire primary sets in more situations. There are too many circumstances where stalkers have to default to one strategy to the exclusion of the other, those strategies being: (1)AS/Placate/Crit/Rehide and (2)scrap with the other >weaker damage< attacks. Giving stalkers the ability to leverage more variety in their tactics.
That out of the way, these are the suggestions I can get behind:
Increase our burst damage specifically - leave the damage modifier alone. The following suggestions are great ideas for upping burst damage without infringing on scrapper territory by also increasing our ability for sustained damage:
Leo G's suggestion of more damage to our crits. Give us bonus crit damage. Make our critical hits HURT.
Upping Build UP to 100% damage buff from the 80% we now have.
Enlarging the teamed crit radius. I could honestly go either way on this. On the one hand I don't really like the notion of anything that encourages scrapperlock on a stalker - specifically, the desire to run off and take on spawns on your own apart from the team. Stalkers running off and doing their own thing when teamed was one of the reasons why the radius was kept so small in the first place. ON THE OTHER HAND, a stalker shouldn't have to depend on other players not doing the same thing (leaving the stalker's crit radius in a scrapperlocked haze) to get the increase in burst damage. So if the radius were increased I woudn't complain.
Instead of adding more secondary effects, make the secondary effects we have more consistent. -regen and -resistance have been thrown around several times, and I while I like the concept, I don't see any more secondary effects added without incurring a cost I'd not be willing to pay. When asked about the lack of accuracy in Kinetic Melee during closed beta, Castle's (paraphrased) response was"
"Knockdown? Check. Ranged attacks in a melee set? Check. -damage effects? Check. A unique rage-like damage buff power? Check. Something had to suffer."
Bearing that in mind, make AS's demoralize power that it grants to the target a PBAoE. That way it affects surrounding mobs even if the target dies.
Call it a day for utility improvements.
I think we should get more use out of Asassin's Strike. I can hear Leo groan from here, but bear with me.
Decrease the activation to match the interrupt time. After some thought, I'll swing over to Leo's way of thinking and agree that it should be interruptible. Leo had a good point with pvp balance and the ability to interrupt an attack with unresistable critical damage, but that's not the sole reasoning. It's a melee sniper attack. It might be part of the left over thinking behind Stalkers as melee blasters with mez protection that pre-dates the I12 changes, but that interruptibility is what balances out the bonus damage.
Bearing that in mind, I think the accuracy should be increased to 1.386 to match the highest accuracy snipe that blasters get (aimed shot). Ranged sniper attacks get extra damage from build-up (or aim, I forget) and pay for that with the interrupt time, but the extended animation time is paid for by increased accuracy. But there's a third balancing factor - range. A blaster can fire off a sniper attack from range and not have to worry as much about it being interrupted due to stray aggro. A stalker is in melee range and has to worry about that, but a stalker is also hidden. Thematically, a stalker is right frickin' there aiming his or her claw/sword/power-laden fist at point blank range. I would think it would be rather hard to miss after aiming for that long. Just sayin'.
Continuing along those lines, I'd like to see the range of AS increased to 12 feet. I want this for one reason. The single biggest problem with using AS on teams are all the conditions for actually landing an assassination in the first place. Never mind the activation time; the interrupt time is the biggest culprit of its limited and situational teaming uses.
I'd be willing to bet that the majority of those interrupts come when the power is activated right after running up to the target. What happens is this: You race the brute/scrapper/blapper to your target, pressing the "w" key for all your worth, because you know if you just hit "follow" the mob will indirectly screw up your assassination attempt when it inevitably moves (causing you to follow and interrupt your own AS) to attack your team. So you run up, hitting build up on your way there, and then let your finger off the "w" key as you enter melee range and cue up AS. The animation starts, but the power is interrupted. Why? Because the server side hasn't registered that you've stopped moving before you hit the power. That means you have to pause for a half second to a second between your stopping and mashing the AS key.
By increasing the range to 12 feet, you're giving the stalker the ability to stop running - oh, half a second or so - sooner and have the flexibility to pause long enough to get the AS activating before the target moves out of range.
It might seem like a small change (then again it might not) but it would have a huge effect on a stalker's ability to get an AS off on a team.
Now, the argument needs to made that any range increase might overpower AS in pvp. I'm not the best pvp'er in the world, but I can say from experience that AS is pretty much good for killing (1)inexperienced pvp'ers who are caught standing around without increased perception, (2)a squishy who's been held or incapacitated already, or (3)a melee'er who's distracted enough by a fite club situation that they just don't pay any attention to anything outside their immediate foe. In all three cases an extra five feet of range wouldn't really be needed.
The one situation I can see it causing problems in pvp is in the case of a really skilled stalker who can reliably predict where a moving opponent is going to pass, get there before them, stop and activate AS as their opponent gets into range, allowing it to go off after they pass. A stalker skilled enough to do that doesn't need five extra feet of range, but it might allow less skilled stalkers to pull off the same trick.
I'm not one hundred percent on this, though, so someone with more pvp experience than me can feel free to set me straight.
That's pretty much it. If stalkers could get just some of those changes, I'd be ecstatic. If they didn't get them all, I'd still be ecstatic. If all they did was give us extra damage on our crits, I'd be over the moon. Like I said, I don't think stalkers need that much of a boost.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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My bad, I should have checked rather than relying on others comments.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Just to be clear, Stalker, Brute and Tanker use the same +dmg modifiers for powers like Build Up...so they all have +80% dmg from that power.
It's only Scrapper and Blaster that get +100% from Build up and such powers. |
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Yeah, but isn't this a bit like the Scrapper fans saying they do their best work when they are using an AoE? Or they do their best work when under the influence of Build Up? It's just one thing they do. However good it is, it doesn't mean that's all they are about. I look at the Stalker's ability to strike hard from Hide as ONE thing about the AT. Too often I read posts where it seems people think this is ALL that Stalkers are about and keep looking for ways to get them able to do it more often.|
Originally Posted by Zamuel
The wording seems to take things a bit out of context and my highest level Stalker is Claws/Willpower so I do scrap a fair bit. I say hit and run more to express the "You do your best work when attacking from ambush...
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I'm fine with the way Stalkers play now. I do get my surprise attack most of the time. Then it's back to scrapping, which is what the OTHER fifteen powers in my powersets are designed to do. I don't need a way to get back into Hide faster. Hide has done its job. Now it's time to fight.
To me the problem is very very simple. I should be able to run through an attack chain and do the same damage as a Scrapper executing the exact same attacks and I should be able to do that WITHOUT being hidden or teamed. Balance on that point with damage modifier and random crits, whatever. Once you achieve that, the Stalker's *controlled* criticals from Hide status push him over the top into the territory that belongs to him: More damage, less survivability than a Scrapper.
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
I was just reading Smiling Joe's comments, and went over to look at what you could pull off by allowing sniping enhancements.
Range could be increased by a maximum of almost 60%, bringing it to 11.20.
Interrupt could be decreased to .91s.
Plus you would open up an interesting set of choices for procs, such as extra toxic damage (very thematically sound for a stalker), and disorient. As well as some nice set bonuses, 7.5% global recharge, Defensive buffs, etc.
An example. With a Sting of the Manticore set you would see:
End Cost: 9.73
Recharge: 10s
Range: 7.89
Accuracy: 132.9%
Interrupt: 1.33s
Damage: 281.92 +20% chance for 71.8 toxic damage
Compare to Makos:
End cost: 8.63
Recharge: 9.02
Range: 7
Accuracy: 149.6%
Interrupt: 2s
Damage 300.7 +20% chance for 71.8 lethal damage.
You get a little extra range, a huge decrease in interrupt, but you sacrifice some damage, accuracy and recharge. It is a balance, the difference is that we can choose how to balance...
However, you can already increase your range through Centriole Exposure I believe. Have to go check that in-game to be sure.
I'm fairly certain that AS isn't effected by Range enhancements.
So while the enhancements are there they wouldn't do anything.
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I don't always agree with Leo, but his posts always make me think that is for sure. =) Yours too.|
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
I posted way up in this thread during the closed beta, but have since given further changes to stalkers some thought (not the least because of my recent discussions with Leo).
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| First, I am going to say right off the bat that I'm skeptical of any changes that give us yet another secondary effect added to AS or any other power. With random criticals and scaling percentages on those random criticals tied to team members in range, both a fear and a to-hit effect that is applied to an unsuccessful AS, Hide-based criticals, a small chance for criticals on held/slept opponents (Still there according to city of data), and a placate in every primary, we're in danger of becoming the gimmick kings IMHO. We need improvement. Not more gimmicks. |
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| I also do not think stalkers need help in surviving or soloing. We have all the tools we need for that now. Teaming could use some improvement, but I don't think stalkers are far out of line there, either. |
Sustained damage we are behind scrappers and blasters, but after i18 I believe brutes fell just behind us (except for a very few very expensive builds). Survival wise, we are behind the scrapper and brute and ahead of the blaster. AoE wise we are dead last. We have burst, but with aim + build up + nuke, blasters have better burst in an AoE form. All we contribute to a team is damage, but there are better options. We need to contribute something more. If the brute is the survivable damage, the blaster is the aoe fragile damage, the scrapper is the balanced damage, why pick the single-target, second worst damage, second worst survivability option? We need something. We're not THAT far behind, it is true, but we are behind in several categories and that is where it hurts, and that is why the reputation exists.
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| Bearing that in mind, make AS's demoralize power that it grants to the target a PBAoE. That way it affects surrounding mobs even if the target dies. |
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| Decrease the activation to match the interrupt time. After some thought, I'll swing over to Leo's way of thinking and agree that it should be interruptible. Leo had a good point with pvp balance and the ability to interrupt an attack with unresistable critical damage, but that's not the sole reasoning. It's a melee sniper attack. It might be part of the left over thinking behind Stalkers as melee blasters with mez protection that pre-dates the I12 changes, but that interruptibility is what balances out the bonus damage. |
Now, on the initial interrupt, I wonder if it would be possible to make the 2 seconds start just a server tick or two AFTER you hit the power, as a kludge to compensate for the server lag? Probably too messy a solution. I think the extra range would solve it anyway.
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| It might seem like a small change (then again it might not) but it would have a huge effect on a stalker's ability to get an AS off on a team. |
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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Brutes are still ahead of Stalkers, and can be ahead of many Scrappers barring external damage buffs, but it requires leveraging Fury for all that it's worth. The lowered damage cap means that once you start applying damage buffs, they fall behind Scrappers for good, though - previously they could catch up and pass a Scrapper on the 2nd Fulcrum Shift.|
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
Here I disagree, and this is why:
Sustained damage we are behind scrappers and blasters, but after i18 I believe brutes fell just behind us (except for a very few very expensive builds). |
Also, in terms of single-target, Stalkers can be ahead of Scrappers (or Brutes) due to the scaling critical rate, if you make a lot of assumptions about attack chains (identical), team positioning (all w/in 30'), and damage buffs (none); it also neglects how much more effective AoEs would be in that situation, and the Scrapper/Brute would tend to have more AoE damage.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Somewhere in the guides section Iakona has a great guide with archetype modifiers in it, and if you find it you'll see that - in terms of mitigation - scrappers only exceed stalkers in the area of self heals and base hit points. Here's the numbers: EDIT - changed to reflect I12/I13 changes|
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
Here I disagree, and this is why:
Sustained damage we are behind scrappers and blasters, but after i18 I believe brutes fell just behind us (except for a very few very expensive builds). Survival wise, we are behind the scrapper and brute and ahead of the blaster. AoE wise we are dead last. We have burst, but with aim + build up + nuke, blasters have better burst in an AoE form. All we contribute to a team is damage, but there are better options. We need to contribute something more. If the brute is the survivable damage, the blaster is the aoe fragile damage, the scrapper is the balanced damage, why pick the single-target, second worst damage, second worst survivability option? We need something. We're not THAT far behind, it is true, but we are behind in several categories and that is where it hurts, and that is why the reputation exists. |
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The following Modifiers vary by level Mod Bl Con Def Scrap Tanker Khld Brute Stalk MasterM Domnatr Coruptr HitPts 1.13 0.95 0.95 1.25 1.75 1 1.4 1.13 0.75 0.95 1 MaxHP 1 1 1 1.5 2 1.5 2 1 1 1 1 MELEE Damage 1 0.55 0.55 1.13 0.8 0.75 0.75 1 0.55 0.75 0.75 KheldSS --- --- --- --- --- 0.85 --- --- --- --- --- Heal 0.9 1.1 1.25 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.1 1.1 0.9 HealSlf 1.13 0.95 0.95 1.25 1.75 1 1.4 0.95 0.75 0.95 1 Stun 0.8 1.25 1 0.8 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 1 1 0.8 Immobil 0.8 1.25 1 0.8 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 1 1 0.8 Sleep 0.8 1.25 1 0.8 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 1 1 0.8 Knockbk 1 1 1 1 1.25 1 1.25 1 1 1 1 Fear 0.8 1.25 1 1 1 0.9 1 1 1 1 0.8 ResBool 0.8 0.8 0.8 1 1.25 0.9 1 1 0.8 0.8 0.8 RANGED Damage 1 0.55 0.65 0.5 0.5 0.63 0.5 0.6 0.55 0.65 0.75 KheldSS --- --- --- --- --- 1.2 --- --- --- --- --- Heal 0.9 1.1 1.25 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 1 1 1.1 HealSlf 1.13 0.95 0.95 1.25 1.75 1 1.4 0.95 0.75 0.95 1 Stun 0.8 1.25 1 0.8 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 1 1 0.75 Immobil 0.8 1.25 1 0.8 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 0.8 1 0.8 Sleep 0.8 1.25 1 8 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 0.8 1 0.8 Knockbk 0.8 1 1 1 1.25 0.9 1.25 1 0.8 1 0.8 Fear 0.8 1.25 1 1 1 0.9 1 1 0.8 1 0.8 ResBool 0.7 1 1.25 0.7 0.7 0.9 0.7 0.7 0.75 0.75 1 |
Now, the argument could be made that our tradeoff for being behind in damage at all is the ability to surgically direct that damage, but that's a strawman that overstates our damage-directing ability, and so single target damage needs to pull ahead of that of the scrapper by a significant amount.
There's more than one way to skin a Skul. You can do it by directly raising all of the stalker's damage via the modifier or you can do it by giving the stalker high enough and consistent enough damage spikes that the total difference will be noticeable.
I'm in favor of the latter, and thus my unequivocal support for more crit damage. How much more is something best determined by someone besides me.
In other words, it isn't enough that we simply have our damage increased; there's something to be said for the way it is increased.
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| I agree 100% on it being interruptable, and I also like the idea and what happens with allowing sniper sets and letting the power take range enhancements. Seems like an easy fix, which also will cut prices on stalker builds since sniper sets are cheap =) Win win. heh. |
Whether simply increasing its range makes it a ranged power is actually something I'm worried about - and it may make the suggestion void. I'm thinking there's some play, using Battle Axe's Cleave as a model, but that might also entail making AS a very narrow cone.
Quote:
| Now, on the initial interrupt, I wonder if it would be possible to make the 2 seconds start just a server tick or two AFTER you hit the power, as a kludge to compensate for the server lag? Probably too messy a solution. I think the extra range would solve it anyway. |
Quote:
| Set base range equal to (enlarged) range of the crit radius, then allow sniper sets? Yes? No? Maybe? |
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
Maybe a better fix (though possibly much more technically challenging) would be to make AS interrupted only by damage, or to start the interruptible part 0.2 seconds after you start it -- long enough to get around the "I actually stopped moving but the server didn't know that" problem.
I don't believe the numbers in that table are quite right. If they are, Mid's and the Wiki are wrong. Stalker's melee modifier is 1, and the ratio on those Hitpts modifiers puts stalkers with 76% the HP of a Scrapper, but these other sources put it at 89%. Those are just two I noticed glancing at it, and I'm not sure if there's more.
Perhaps this table predates Stalkers being reworked?
Also, even with those numbers the self heal on a Stalker should be lower that even a defense set with a self heal "falls behind."
I agree with your conclusion never the less, that something like increased criticals would be appropriate. I'm not opposed to more of a discrepancy though, like take their HPs back down but put the damage modifier up. These discussions are so flooded with opinions and differing numbers that I'd really just like to see some hard data mining -- like the ratio of real world damage scrappers:stalkers on the live servers -- to tell us if one AT needs "correcting."
@Gilia1
I play heroes on Champion.
I play villains on Virtue.
I think one of the concepts between the new Praetoria missions was the desire to make situations that required different methods. There's the Zowies mish where you hit on your contact's GF, there's a mish where, if you run it right, has no enemies.
The original intent of the excessive ambushes was not to give you something to kill, it was to give you motivation to run...
Unfortunately, the motivation is often too deadly to deal with even if you choose to run.