Having played Stalkers since CoV Beta, I am pretty happy with how they are right now except for two things.
One, the Stalker HP Cap. On my Regen Stalker with Accolades and IO Sets, I am currently at hp cap of 1606. That leaves my Dull Pain pretty much a second heal that is insanelt long to recharge XD An increase to at least 2000 would be wonderful.
Two, Changes to Assassin Strike. When in an intense battle where you have no chance to stealth or even pull off an Assassin Strike without interruptions (while Solo or in a team) I propose that when you ARE NOT stealthed or under stealth status from Placate that Assassin Strike IS NOT interuptable. When you are stealthed its status could be set back to interuptable. In the heat of a fight right now a Stalker has pretty much no access to a whole power.
Change those two and I think they would be pretty nice for me at least.
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What I would like to see more than anything else is for Stalkers to get back the AoEs that were removed from their sets. Trying to increase Stalker damage to the point they can drop single targets fast enough to simulate an AoE is just a roundabout way of addressing the problem. This game is largely about AoE. Sure you want strong single-target damage, but other ATs don't have to give up one to get the other.
I doubt most people are inviting Blasters to their teams just so they can help take down AVs faster. They are expected to obliterate groups of mobs with AoEs. Stalkers are in many ways melee focused Blasters. IMO they should be able to fill the same role.
If it were up to me I'd make Placate inherent and replace it with the missing AoE power. I don't know that I'd go so far as to make Hide inherent, or AS for that matter. Probably just Placate. Another thing this would help with is how tight Stalker builds are in the early levels. Anyone who has built Stalkers or spent time on that section of the boards knows how tight a squeeze it is trying to get in the core tools along with the other bare essentials. Making Placate inherent wouldn't eliminate the problem but it would put it closer to being in line with other ATs.
Beyond that my second pick would be the HP cap. I wouldn't increase it a lot, but enough that secondaries with +HP would at least be able to get some meaningful benefit from that effect.
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Stalkers being so single target focused is what I like about them. Now only if they could get up to Scrapper level of single target output to make them as good if not better.|
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone
What I would like to see more than anything else is for Stalkers to get back the AoEs that were removed from their sets. Trying to increase Stalker damage to the point they can drop single targets fast enough to simulate an AoE is just a roundabout way of addressing the problem. This game is largely about AoE. Sure you want strong single-target damage, but other ATs don't have to give up one to get the other.
I doubt most people are inviting Blasters to their teams just so they can help take down AVs faster. They are expected to obliterate groups of mobs with AoEs. Stalkers are in many ways melee focused Blasters. IMO they should be able to fill the same role. If it were up to me I'd make Placate inherent and replace it with the missing AoE power. I don't know that I'd go so far as to make Hide inherent, or AS for that matter. Probably just Placate. Another thing this would help with is how tight Stalker builds are in the early levels. Anyone who has built Stalkers or spent time on that section of the boards knows how tight a squeeze it is trying to get in the core tools along with the other bare essentials. Making Placate inherent wouldn't eliminate the problem but it would put it closer to being in line with other ATs. Beyond that my second pick would be the HP cap. I wouldn't increase it a lot, but enough that secondaries with +HP would at least be able to get some meaningful benefit from that effect. |
HP Cap, eh, I've been fine with myself.
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I am so doing this on my hero stalker when GR goes live.
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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
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Personally (among some other things) I'd speed up the cast time on placate so that it actually makes numerical sense to use it on attacks other than AS. Because as of right now there are very few attacks (some sets have none) where using placate actually increases your dps.
Now my understanding of the power is that it is supposed to be multipurpose.
a/ it is supposed to give you a tactical advantage. i.e. placate a boss to get it to stop trying to kill you.
b/ it is supposed to give you an offensive advantage. Which it does with assassin strike, but you can't always use assassin strike, and it does with a select few single target attacks, and most aoes. But imo if placate is supposed to improve your offense it should do so in all applications.
Reducing the cast time of placate to ~1 second would make it work with almost all attacks to increase offensive output rather than lowering dps and it would help alleviate some of the issues of a mob walking over and hitting you while you placate it and effectively breaking the effect (well the hidden bonus anyway).
To prove my point: if you use claws there isn't a single attack that you can placate before (other than AS) that will improve your st dps. So if you are in a situation where AS is difficult to use placate is now offensively useless for you. This however isn't the case for all sets. For instance new MA has multiple attacks that placating prior to is beneficial. IMO it shouldn't be that way where some sets benefit considerably more from the signature power of the AT than others.
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The lack of offensive benefit from Placate for many sets is also one of the reasons I haven't been in full agreement with the the "faster or insta-recharge on Placate" buffs people have talked about in the thread. Between it not really offering a damage increase in many settings and being able to lose the hidden status simply by being hit while it's animating - even by the mob you're Placating - making it's benefit questionable for non-defense sets in a lot of situations, being able to use Placate more often never seemed appealing. It's usually already recharged and going unused on most of my Stalkers, waiting for when I actually need to stop one thing from hitting me.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
Personally (among some other things) I'd speed up the cast time on placate so that it actually makes numerical sense to use it on attacks other than AS. Because as of right now there are very few attacks (some sets have none) where using placate actually increases your dps.
Now my understanding of the power is that it is supposed to be multipurpose. a/ it is supposed to give you a tactical advantage. i.e. placate a boss to get it to stop trying to kill you. b/ it is supposed to give you an offensive advantage. Which it does with assassin strike, but you can't always use assassin strike, and it does with a select few single target attacks, and most aoes. But imo if placate is supposed to improve your offense it should do so in all applications. Reducing the cast time of placate to ~1 second would make it work with almost all attacks to increase offensive output rather than lowering dps and it would help alleviate some of the issues of a mob walking over and hitting you while you placate it and effectively breaking the effect (well the hidden bonus anyway). To prove my point: if you use claws there isn't a single attack that you can placate before (other than AS) that will improve your st dps. So if you are in a situation where AS is difficult to use placate is now offensively useless for you. This however isn't the case for all sets. For instance new MA has multiple attacks that placating prior to is beneficial. IMO it shouldn't be that way where some sets benefit considerably more from the signature power of the AT than others. |
And I haven't checked recently, but while on the subject of Placate, does it work against EBs now? I seem to recall reading of several instances of downgraded AVs being Placated and continuing to aggro on the Stalker because an EB needs a higher mag than 4 to mez. I usually ended up fighting the AV version instead, so never really noticed, and haven't had to Placate an EB in a while.
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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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Originally Posted by Siolfir
And I haven't checked recently, but while on the subject of Placate, does it work against EBs now? I seem to recall reading of several instances of downgraded AVs being Placated and continuing to aggro on the Stalker because an EB needs a higher mag than 4 to mez. I usually ended up fighting the AV version instead, so never really noticed, and haven't had to Placate an EB in a while.
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- If there's a secondary effect on an enemy or a PvP foe, there is a high chance of the Placate effect being overridden.
- Some enemies have natural Placate resistance.
- Oddly, some enemies seem to have a one or two second delay before Placate kicks in. If you're fighting something one on one and you're having problems with Placate, stop attacking and take a few steps back. After attempting one or two attacks in their queue they'll ignore you.
I think the idea of making AS near-instant (and adding the time to recharge) is a great idea! Stalkers rarely get to use it on teams when they start to roll along, so it would help teaming a great deal. Doing the same to Placate's not a bad idea either.
I'm fond of the idea of making Placate faster to cast.
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This, and...| Damage is boosted to 1.125 (Why they're 1.000 is beyond me, high damage? Not really... They lack the AoE to be high damage.) Build up raised to +100% damage over +80% |
How about giving all stalker attacks a 10-20% to placate? Longer animating attacks would receive a higher percentage. Is this too broken? Alright? Weak?
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Not what I was talking about. I'm talking about, for example, a downgraded AV that becomes an EB. They have identical powers (and thus any Placate resistance), and would have the same effects on them. The AV-class mob would be Placated normally, and stop attacking. The EB-class mob would be Placated, and continue attacking repeatedly (not just one or two attacks).
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Originally Posted by Zamuel
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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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Hmmm...might be a magnitude problem. I just checked and surprisingly [Placate] is just mag 4. AVs have mag 3 protection to most things then the purple triangles are applied but don't protect against placate effects. EBs have native mag 6 protection to status effects. So this seems like a case of the EB faring better than the AV which is sort of messed up.
out of this whole thread the 1st response sums things up the best.
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Originally Posted by rmthornton
I agree with you. I'd prefer to see more damage from a stalker, not more survivability. More HP / defences will just make them more like a scrapper, whereas I'd prefer them to play more like a blapper: kill super fast, or die trying.
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from my first post on it:
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Originally Posted by Siolfir
I seem to recall reading of several instances of downgraded AVs being Placated and continuing to aggro on the Stalker because an EB needs a higher mag than 4 to mez.
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Originally Posted by Zamuel
Hmmm...might be a magnitude problem. I just checked and surprisingly [Placate] is just mag 4.
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Anyone have word on that?
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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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I'd rather not. I'm not fond of random chance. Additionally, most of the time you have an attack queued up already so it'd be just another chance to random crit.
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Originally Posted by Atheism
This, and...
How about giving all stalker attacks a 10-20% to placate? Longer animating attacks would receive a higher percentage. Is this too broken? Alright? Weak? |
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Furthermore, if you're teaming with anyone fragile, randomly placating is great way to get someone killed. It basically sacks your ability to be sticky at all - yes, it's not the stalker role to really be 'the sticky guy,' but in small teams, the dude with mez protection and personal shields goes in first.
A fast-casting, uninterruptible assassin's strike would go a long way towards giving Stalkers that leg up on Scrappers in terms of damage. As I've said before, Assassin's Strike on its own has pretty decent damage. Lowering its cast to something more meaningful would give Stalkers another stable attack to scrap with, as well as a good attack to capitalise on their hidden status, even in combat.
I never understood why Hide is so fickle. It's not like the AT is badly overpowered and it needs to be balanced by annoyance. In general, I hate balancing mechanics that dangle huge damage in front of you, only to yoink it almost every time because you just can't have it. What is with the stigma against "snipe" attacks that makes them HAVE to be practically impossible to use in combat?
I find it completely inexcusable that the Stalker's gimmick is designed such that you can only use it once per combat, and even then only if your team lets you open. Hiding and blindsiding should be how Stalkers FIGHT, not merely how Stalkers OPEN.
*edit*
In fact, you know what I picture when I say the above? Remember those ninja in ninja anime, and how they'll get hit, only it turns out the enemy hit a log and the ninja is actually behind him ready to stab him in the kidneys? That's how I picture Stalkers fighting. Less Hitman 47 and more Strider Hiryu.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Not compared to CoX ATs. But compared to the stealth ATs of other games, the stalker is gonzo crazy-go-nuts. Its initial design, those fundamentals that we're running up against here, was to push the envelope of what like it had been created in other games. | It's not like the AT is badly overpowered and it needs to be balanced by annoyance. |
Does that help you understand why the AT works the way it is?
As far as stalkers go in game, you probably want to avoid trying to impose a specific flavour on the game. You want to put things in that are interpretable in a variety of different ways. Limiting flavour is a bad idea, you know?
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Yeah, I understand why that was originally done the way it was. A lot of ATs suffered the same preconceptions, not least of all Blasters, but those were improved and brought closer to capitalising on their own strengths. Stalkers, by contrast, were merely driven farther AWAY from their AT gimmick. They indeed feel as though they've been designed by the same "fragile" expectations of ye olde MMOs.|
Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Not compared to CoX ATs. But compared to the stealth ATs of other games, the stalker is gonzo crazy-go-nuts. Its initial design, those fundamentals that we're running up against here, was to push the envelope of what like it had been created in other games.
Does that help you understand why the AT works the way it is? |
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| As far as stalkers go in game, you probably want to avoid trying to impose a specific flavour on the game. You want to put things in that are interpretable in a variety of different ways. Limiting flavour is a bad idea, you know? |
If I had my way, Stalkers would be more damaging than Scrappers, but would need to employ a whole bag of tricks to achieve this, and no "running and hiding" is not a trick. It's a waste of time.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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What you were saying, basically, is 'think like this flavour of stalker for ways to expand the stalker.' I advise against that. | . I'm talking about flavour of AT mechanic. |
Honestly, this thread feels a bit like a spin in the wind. We're a long time from Castle being able to fix things, and if we're all sitting here without redname guidance on how close/far we are from 'reasonable' or 'possible' solutions, we're likely to get further and further off course.
Pulling down AS' animation time to one second sounds kinda sassy... but I also think I'd be very sad to lose some of the ASes. They do look cool...
Now, I think that the Stalker as a Scrapper With Tricks is a novel one, but it's better exampled by a set. Part of why I don't like scrappers getting Ninjutsu - it would be a bag-of-tricks set, and because of the loss of hide, on a scrapper, it'd get another trick.
Hmm, hmm, hmmm. This is part of the challenge, of course. Concepting mechanisms, components of ideas - not mechanics, concrete changes... that's tricky. Because to me, stalkers 'feel' like there should be two scales here; stalkers trend towards the 'single target' end on one, and 'damage' the end on another, while tankers trend towards the 'area effect' and 'survivability' ends of those same graphs.
Paradigms, wheels, wheels. Of course, the problem arises in that the brute, scrapper, and tanker are almost - almost - universal in their area coverage. Stalkers are worse... but well, yes. Anyway. This is all very rambly and I'm just trying to offer up a warning against pursuing any 'solution' too far. We all need to be careful in this thread, because brainstorming up ideas is one thing, but what starts as 'Castle said something that started a discussion on closed beta' becomes, through the grapevine, 'Castle is going to probably make this fix.' Which I'd like to avoid.
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I disagree. Stalkers need their own flavour. We already have more than enough melee/defence ATs to the point where we don't know what to do with half of them. As Kain said, "it is the errant who are removed," and in this case it's only Stalkers who are seen as underperforming. That's not to say they should be rethought, or even simply changed. It is to say they nee their own flavour, which in turn leads me to several of the relatively few concepts I can think of who use stealth as a fighting technique, rather than stealth as a sneaking technique.|
Originally Posted by Talen Lee
What you were saying, basically, is 'think like this flavour of stalker for ways to expand the stalker.' I advise against that.
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In fact... I think that's a good way to put it: If Stalkers' gimmick is stealth, then I want to see them use their stealth to fight with, not just to sneak with. Stealth in combat is what Stalkers are missing. If I can find a good example of stealth in combat in other games or other fiction, then I feel that's a good thing to share. That's the sort of thing that could make people go "Oh, I see what you mean now." I can explain this till the cows come home. Giving a pre-existing example will still be better.
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| Pulling down AS' animation time to one second sounds kinda sassy... but I also think I'd be very sad to lose some of the ASes. They do look cool... |
I don't envision losing the Assassin's Strike animations at all. I envision losing the dead air pauses and possibly speeding up the posing stages somewhat. You can shave half the duration off those powers without losing almost anything, and that's just by cutting the pre-hit and after-hit pauses. At the very least Assassin's Blade has what feels like a full second of dead air after the attack while the character ever so slowly reassumes combat stance.
What's more, I feel like elaborate yet fast and smooth attack used more often in battle would add much more to the aesthetics of the sets that have than the current more deliberate versions do, because you see them so very rarely, at least as compared to most other powers.
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| Now, I think that the Stalker as a Scrapper With Tricks is a novel one, but it's better exampled by a set. Part of why I don't like scrappers getting Ninjutsu - it would be a bag-of-tricks set, and because of the loss of hide, on a scrapper, it'd get another trick. |
Frankly, I don't know how that could be achieved in-game, exactly, but I want to see hidden criticals initiated mid-combat a lot more frequently than Placate currently permits. Allowing Stalkers to blindside pursuers with Assassin's Strike, rather than having to rely on the much weaker criticals of their other attacks is one way to achieve this. If I could hop around a corner for 6-8 seconds and pop an Assassin's Blade, instead of, say, Soaring Dragon, that would make me MUCH more willing to re-hide.
Generally, I want to see re-hiding made into something I WANT to do, rather than something I NEED to do when I have no other options.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Irritant. Subtle but significant.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
As Kain said, "it is the errant who are removed,"
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Also, hmm. How about this:
Placate becomes semi-AoE. Your main target gets placated as it is now, but all other nearby (large radius) foes get a strong -taunt. Solo, you'll still top their aggro lists, but in a team, they're very likely to go after your teammates when you Placate.
Also, for a brief period after Placating (2-3s) your Hide cannot be broken by incoming damage.
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The idea is to make stalkers more desirable on teams. Shedding aggro like water off a duck's back is okay, provided you're not sending that aggro over to your teamed squishies. |
Originally Posted by SkarmoryThePG
Placate becomes semi-AoE. Your main target gets placated as it is now, but all other nearby (large radius) foes get a strong -taunt. Solo, you'll still top their aggro lists, but in a team, they're very likely to go after your teammates when you Placate.
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The quickest way stalkers get booted from teams is by abandoning their team in the name of "scouting." But only SLIGHTLY LESS OFFENSIVE are the stalkers who get teammates killed through consistently poor use of placate in big fights. Giving it an AoE -taunt effect WITH THE INTENTION of sending that aggro to the rest of your team is just asking to have stalkers shunned in the future.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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This is exactly what I was thinking as well, you put it very well.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
They're also at least 50 dead air. As a point of fact, Assassin's Strike powers are almost exactly like what Martial Arts attacks were back in I1: one third slow pose, one third holding that pose and then one third attack. What happened to Martial Arts was that the three were all rolled into one smooth action, with the pose flowing into the attack by skipping the pause altogether. Look at things like Crane Kick and Cobra Strike and you can still catch the pose-hold-strike structure that they used to have.
I don't envision losing the Assassin's Strike animations at all. I envision losing the dead air pauses and possibly speeding up the posing stages somewhat. You can shave half the duration off those powers without losing almost anything, and that's just by cutting the pre-hit and after-hit pauses. At the very least Assassin's Blade has what feels like a full second of dead air after the attack while the character ever so slowly reassumes combat stance. What's more, I feel like elaborate yet fast and smooth attack used more often in battle would add much more to the aesthetics of the sets that have than the current more deliberate versions do, because you see them so very rarely, at least as compared to most other powers. |
The Hide and AS would be inherent power like the Kheldians get Flight/Teleport.
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