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The same reason you should roll any character: Because you enjoy playing them. (and if you don't, don't)
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Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Why roll a stalker again?
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Why roll a stalker again?
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Because, as difficult as this may be for you to grasp, not everybody plays the game to achieve as mathematically perfect a set of numbers marching up the screen as possible.
If this is your thing, why not go play Progress Quest? In terms of the raw mathematical efficiency of games, how much you win versus the effort you invest, it is not just the most efficient game ever but the most efficient game possible. The little bar that tells you how good you are at a completely irrelevant and meaningless aspect of your existence moves faster, too.
Or you could actually take the audacious step of playing a game and not a two-thousand-dollar calculator with a prettier screen.
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Even with the stalker crit chance saturated at 31% scrappers can still out-damage them against single targets in any fight that lasts longer than 5-7 seconds.|
Originally Posted by Microcosm
Incorrect when on teams. Solo, sure (usually), but on teams the Stalker is superior in single target damage but usually still inferior in AoE capability (except for electric and maybe spines) which is the general problem since the vast majority of the game is AoE-centric.
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This doesn't mean you shouldn't play a Stalker or have fun with one.
Was on a mayhem mission with a stalker. We never once had to deal with a PPD Equalizer. That was a pretty significant addition to our experience.
Yes, but that's anecdotal evidence and therefore is utterly meaningless when the number crunchers have told us that Stalkers are useless compared to Scrappers. 
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Hmmm...Using EM/xxx a Stalker can - BU+AS(crit)+ET+Placte+TF(crit) for more Damage than a Scrapper can to take down a boss and a LT or two as a team wipes up the minions|
Originally Posted by BaronZealot
You misunderstand. What they're saying is that a Scrapper can put out more single-target damage in any fight that lasts longer than 5-7 seconds. This can be determined mathematically. If you kite you're going to lower your damage even more.
If you enjoy Stalkers and one or more of their play-styles that's an entirely different matter. |
how about ELM/xxx - BU+LR+AS (crit)+placate+TS(crit) can rock the house
And not to over look that on teams I can get a lot more crits on my stalker than your scrapps can...mu ha ha ha. And believe me my stalkers can scrap just fine.
either way though, they are both fun to play so enjoy.
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Electric melee is an exception to this, as it has the same AoE capabilities and better single target capabilities teamed or not. Spines is also acceptable because the addition of AS rounds out the set a bit more, and though it lacks quills, being able to get 50% crit chance on the ranged cone makes up for it imo. Other than that, we agree. Now that Scrappers have access to Stalkers patron pools, there is no reason for anyone concerned with minmaxing to play a non-Elec/nin Stalker. This is a obviously a problem and the discussion in the "So...Stalkers" thread below.
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Originally Posted by Test_Rat
So we agree.
Stalkers have less damage and less survivablilty than a scrapper: AOE: ALWAYS SINGLE TARGET: In that tiny sliver of the time during your career when you are fighting AVs. Why roll a stalker again? Ninjitsu (til they port it to scrappers). |
The Inspiration Maker's Guide [i12] UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
A Flash in the Dark: The Electric/Ninjitsu Stalker [i23]
Kheldian Inspiration Macros UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
Guide to the Katana~Ninja Blade/Electric [i23]
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This is flat wrong. You need to run the numbers again.|
Originally Posted by BaronZealot
Even with the stalker crit chance saturated at 31% scrappers can still out-damage them against single targets in any fight that lasts longer than 5-7 seconds.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't play a Stalker or have fun with one. |
Edit: 33% is the max, by the way, not 31%
The Inspiration Maker's Guide [i12] UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
A Flash in the Dark: The Electric/Ninjitsu Stalker [i23]
Kheldian Inspiration Macros UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
Guide to the Katana~Ninja Blade/Electric [i23]
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Stalkers might even be better with their Kinetic Melee performance in addition to Elec and Spines.|
Originally Posted by Microcosm
Electric melee is an exception to this, as it has the same AoE capabilities and better single target capabilities teamed or not. Spines is also acceptable because the addition of AS rounds out the set a bit more, and though it lacks quills, being able to get 50% crit chance on the ranged cone makes up for it imo. Other than that, we agree. Now that Scrappers have access to Stalkers patron pools, there is no reason for anyone concerned with minmaxing to play a non-Elec/nin Stalker. This is a obviously a problem and the discussion in the "So...Stalkers" thread below.
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Stalkers get to swap LMAO Repulsing Torrent for AS! Plus Stalkers get superior +to-hit and burst damage to start a fight with BU over Power Siphon.
So BU+AS(crit)+burst+the tier 9 (forgot name at the moment) will out perform
Power siphon+whatever
This thread needs to go look at the new Stalker Ancillary Pool(s).
*Fireball*
"Is it fair that I have to wait 41+ levels to get a decent AOE though?"
Probably not.
The problem with Stalker in general is a combination of feeling "inferior" and feeling" bored".
It is ok if an AT is under-performing as long as it's FUN. Not everyone is attracted to being min/max. In fact, none of my friends care if power 1 activates slower than power 2 as long as they think power 1 looks cool and fun.
This game CoX is EXTREMELY team-friendly. With auto-sidekick and buffs/debuffs stacking, who doesn't want to team up in this game? But Stalker's design is lacking in team context.
I recently came back and I was playing Lord of the Ring online. They have Burgular who is like an Assassin type of character. What Burgular contributes the most on a team that the others have a hard time fulfilling is Leadership Maneuver attack that the whole team can perform together. I am not an expert in Lotro but that gives me a reason to invite Burgular because Burg does decent damage and control and the leadership maneuver can deal massive damage on a single target. This is just one way where Assassin can help out on a team. Not saying this is the best way but I feel Stalker is missing something on a team. Assassin Strike takes too long to activate and its damage is still not that impressive.
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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Actually Fireball isn't available until lvl 47|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
This thread needs to go look at the new Stalker Ancillary Pool(s).
*Fireball* "Is it fair that I have to wait 41+ levels to get a decent AOE though?" Probably not. |
But Disruptor Blast does more damage and is available at lvl 44.
If you want AOE though play Elec or Spines
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A number followed by a plus sign is meant to state something to the effect of: "this, and every number after it." |
Originally Posted by Golden_Pie
Actually Fireball isn't available until lvl 47
But Disruptor Blast does more damage and is available at lvl 44. If you want AOE though play Elec or Spines |
I say "41+" because I can't be **** to look up every single AOE in every single Epic Pool and list them, but general knowledge understands that they are unlocked at level 41 and can then be utilized thereafter.
Stating: "Go play the two sets that aren't broken" probably isn't the fix most Stalkers were hoping for.
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Hmm. It appears you are right. I had an incorrect row reference in my spreadsheet. I did my comparison with Martial Arts and the buff to Eagle's Claw makes it hard to have a gap-less attack chain now without adding in another power so making the changes is not straight across.|
Originally Posted by Microcosm
This is flat wrong. You need to run the numbers again.
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If I were to guess, I'd say that Stalkers and Scrappers were roughly equal with 4-5 teammates in range. They trade back and forth at that point depending on where they are in their attack chain.
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Yup, there you go. And to clarify, I am not disagreeing with you guys about the Stalker-Scrapper disparity when it comes to the nonAoE sets. I have a 50 elec/nin, a 40 something spine/nin, and 41 nin/elec. The first two are fine, and the electric/nin is more than fine. I originally rolled the nin/elec as a stalker because I wanted the leviathan pool. Now I am pretty P.O.'ed, cause had I known Scrappers would get the same pools I would have done a Scrapper in the first place. I like the Stalker concept much better than the Scrapper, but the minmaxer in me cannot abide such a blatant disparity.
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Originally Posted by BaronZealot
Hmm. It appears you are right. I had an incorrect row reference in my spreadsheet. I did my comparison with Martial Arts and the buff to Eagle's Claw makes it hard to have a gap-less attack chain now without adding in another power so making the changes is not straight across.
If I were to guess, I'd say that Stalkers and Scrappers were roughly equal with 4-5 teammates in range. They trade back and forth at that point depending on where they are in their attack chain. |
The Inspiration Maker's Guide [i12] UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
A Flash in the Dark: The Electric/Ninjitsu Stalker [i23]
Kheldian Inspiration Macros UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
Guide to the Katana~Ninja Blade/Electric [i23]
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The math on it isn't that hard - to get general numbers, just assume an identical chain and slotting, then you can assume those are 1 in the equation and it's just a matter of adjusting the crit rate until the multipliers are equal.|
Originally Posted by BaronZealot
If I were to guess, I'd say that Stalkers and Scrappers were roughly equal with 4-5 teammates in range. They trade back and forth at that point depending on where they are in their attack chain.
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Stalkers start at 1.10, and the additional teammates add an effective 0.03, working them to a "effective" modifier of 1.31 when 7 teammates are in range.
For some maths...
Solo:
Scrapper: 1.125 (AT mod) * 1.05 (crit rate vs minion) = 1.18125
Scrapper: 1.125 (AT mod) * 1.10 (crit rate vs Lt+) = 1.2375
Stalker: 1.0 (AT mod) * 1.10 (crit rate) = 1.10
4 teammates w/in 30':
Scrapper: still 1.18125 (minion), 1.2375 (lt+)
Stalker: 1.0 * (1.10 + (4 * 0.03)) = 1.22
Against Lts and higher, you need 5 teammates in range to exceed Scrapper damage. Against minions, you only need 3. If you use 7.5% (the crit rate Castle stated he used as the comparison for Scrapper damage when he altered Fury), it's 4 teammates. They're never exactly equal.
If you want more detail, you can actually apply the damage modifiers to account for the differences in Build Up strength and things like damage auras or Against All Odds - then you do need to actually account for extra details. But in general, you can just get the effective AT mod and assume the same power use.
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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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lol...since when has AS done subpar damage...I think you forgot to activate hide. That being said this is City of AoE's...but I still enjoy the play style of stalkers.
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Originally Posted by Jibikao
The problem with Stalker in general is a combination of feeling "inferior" and feeling" bored".
It is ok if an AT is under-performing as long as it's FUN. Not everyone is attracted to being min/max. In fact, none of my friends care if power 1 activates slower than power 2 as long as they think power 1 looks cool and fun. This game CoX is EXTREMELY team-friendly. With auto-sidekick and buffs/debuffs stacking, who doesn't want to team up in this game? But Stalker's design is lacking in team context. I recently came back and I was playing Lord of the Ring online. They have Burgular who is like an Assassin type of character. What Burgular contributes the most on a team that the others have a hard time fulfilling is Leadership Maneuver attack that the whole team can perform together. I am not an expert in Lotro but that gives me a reason to invite Burgular because Burg does decent damage and control and the leadership maneuver can deal massive damage on a single target. This is just one way where Assassin can help out on a team. Not saying this is the best way but I feel Stalker is missing something on a team. Assassin Strike takes too long to activate and its damage is still not that impressive. |
Assassin's Strike from Hide is basically a mega, single-target nuke. Haven't seen what a high-level Stalker can do, but my L27's doing over 400 now on stuff that doesn't resist. Nothing else comes even close when it comes to single-target damage. (yeah, I know, your AoE nukes do way more when you add it all up, but NOT to a single target)
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Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
Assassin's Strike from Hide is basically a mega, single-target nuke. Haven't seen what a high-level Stalker can do, but my L27's doing over 400 now on stuff that doesn't resist. Nothing else comes even close when it comes to single-target damage. (yeah, I know, your AoE nukes do way more when you add it all up, but NOT to a single target)
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Wait until you hit the 40's and your built-up AS barely takes a quarter of a longbow warden's health.
AS does great damage, but the resists in the late game are far and away disproportionate to the level increase in your damage scale. Since the vast majority of Stalker primaries do smashing/lethal (and those that aren't pure lethal are at least half smashing on most of their attacks) then the ST damage in the upper levels isn't quite as noticeable.
Especially when it's the upper levels where other archetypes are beginning to come into their own, AoE-wise. I agree with Jbikao - so much of the stalker damage is based on three powers (BU, AS and Placate), which being so slow to animate that most of their damage is wasted on half to mostly dead targets when teamed, that the damage numbers on the spread sheets are obviated by their implementation in a teaming dynamic.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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I just don't see this on the TFs I usually take my Stalker into. I don't see bosses vaporizing in front of me in a mere 3 seconds (which is all it takes AS to animate and deliver its damage according to my chat logs). Build Up happens on my way TO the target, so I don't count it. Maybe all of you are talking about farm teams or something? Nice, orderly packed spawns? I find plenty of bosses running around in TFs that I can dig my blade into without having some "AoE is everything" zealot nuke them away first.|
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
Especially when it's the upper levels where other archetypes are beginning to come into their own, AoE-wise. I agree with Jbikao - so much of the stalker damage is based on three powers (BU, AS and Placate), which being so slow to animate that most of their damage is wasted on half to mostly dead targets when teamed, that the damage numbers on the spread sheets are obviated by their implementation in a teaming dynamic.
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I've said this before and I'll say it again. If there's enough AoE on the team to kill a boss in three seconds then it hardly matters whether your Stalker has good AoE or not. The team is so overpowered you might as well go AFK for a smoke while they kill everything. They probably won't notice.
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Task forces are what? Five percent of the game? You can't judge an archetype's performance based solely on how it performs in Task Forces.|
Originally Posted by Zem
I just don't see this on the TFs I usually take my Stalker into. I don't see bosses vaporizing in front of me in a mere 3 seconds (which is all it takes AS to animate and deliver its damage according to my chat logs). Build Up happens on my way TO the target, so I don't count it. Maybe all of you are talking about farm teams or something? Nice, orderly packed spawns? I find plenty of bosses running around in TFs that I can dig my blade into without having some "AoE is everything" zealot nuke them away first.
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And in any case, I'm not talking about bosses vaporizing (especially in the context of the longbow warden example I opened with) before you can damage them. I'm talking about a rather binary state of affairs where a boss is either tough enough that it won't be heavily damaged in three or four (or ten or fifteen) seconds due to high resists, or those minor bosses and lieutenants that are heavily damaged shortly after the alpha.
If it's the former, your damage is so heavily resisted (as are most of the stalker primaries) that archetypes with more exotic damage types are able to close the gap. In addition, the value of burst damage goes down somewhat in favor of debuffs (that make everything feel like major damage).
In the latter case - and the latter is far and away the more common case, I'm still not talking about the boss dying. The boss or lt may not be killed before your AS animates, but their health is reduced enough that the heavy damage from a built-up AS or Tier 9 is pure overkill by an exponential amount.
There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground between the two. Either you're damage is resisted enough to make single target burst damage all but irrelevant, or the mob's resistances are low enough that the majority of your damage is overkill. Hell, on teams anyone can take down a boss in 3-5 seconds, so who needs stalkers to do it for them?
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| I've said this before and I'll say it again. If there's enough AoE on the team to kill a boss in three seconds then it hardly matters whether your Stalker has good AoE or not. The team is so overpowered you might as well go AFK for a smoke while they kill everything. They probably won't notice. |
Whether the boss dies in three seconds or an hour is irrelevant. It's whether or not Stalkers can equally contribute to that death in a team environment that's at stake.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
I'm reading this five-to-seven seconds number a lot, and forgive me if I'm missing something here, I'm one of those boring, low-brow Scrappers y'all made speak of, but isn't that number irrelevant at best and disingenuous at worst?
Can a Scrapper do more damage from more safety after five-to-seven seconds?
...******* duh. This isn't news. 'Twas my perception that the point of a Stalker is to end the fight before then. If a Scrapper fights for ten seconds, then the Stalker preps for seven and fights for three.
So, if the two are quite apples and oranges, why are they being compared?
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Keep in mind we're talking team stalkers verses solo. Teams won't wait around for a stalker to prep for even three seconds, much less seven. (And I realize that you were just tossing out a number there. No one really needs seven seconds to prep, eh?)|
Originally Posted by FunstuffofDoom
I'm reading this five-to-seven seconds number a lot, and forgive me if I'm missing something here, I'm one of those boring, low-brow Scrappers y'all made speak of, but isn't that number irrelevant at best and disingenuous at worst?
Can a Scrapper do more damage from more safety after five-to-seven seconds? ...******* duh. This isn't news. 'Twas my perception that the point of a Stalker is to end the fight before then. If a Scrapper fights for ten seconds, then the Stalker preps for seven and fights for three. So, if the two are quite apples and oranges, why are they being compared? |
My point is that in order to make stalkers more team friendly, they made them more like scrappers with the ability to crit out of hide on any target (early on it was just a chance to crit on held or slept targets) that scales with number of teammates in range. The more people on your team, the more like a scrapper you play. Your AS doesn't see nearly as much use during normal teaming as it does solo, and AS (combined with your tier 9) is close to half your damage potential.
What it boils down to is that - while teamed - a stalker plays like a weak scrapper unless your team is fighting AV's and hard targets, which are a small fraction of total teamable content.
And I'll be the last person to say scrappers are boring.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
Quote:
I think you forgot to use your brain....|
Originally Posted by Deep Rootz
lol...since when has AS done subpar damage...I think you forgot to activate hide. That being said this is City of AoE's...but I still enjoy the play style of stalkers.
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AS has a requirement "hidden" and without build up, you can't even AS a +3 high level Longbow to death. With Build Up, you can't even finish a +2 Longbow Nullfire Lieut.
The AS damage is "great" but not "super". And sometimes you don't even want to finish off the target because you'll lose the AoE random Fear which probably contributes more to a team.
My problem with Assassin Strike is actually activation time now. I think taking 5-6s with Build Up is just too long to be a "good" assassin. 5-6s is fine if you are soloing but I think 99% of us here don't think Stalker has a problem soloing. On a team, 5-6s is NOT acceptable in my book, especially with Brutes/Dominator having that "go go go" mentality.
I think a nice way to start is to trim down that activation time from 4s to 2 something or even shorter for PvE purpose. I can see longer activation time in PvP but I don't pvp in this game..no offense. I enjoy pvp but just not this game.
PS: Stalker's game is like Blaster's "burst" damage. The damage difference is Blaster has amazing aoe damage with Build Up + Aim, which can be cast on the run. Stalker needs to hit Build Up and then find a target and stand still. Sets like Electricity, Spines and Claw may not need to setup on a large team because the aoe damage contributes more.
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.
Ninjitsu (til they port it to scrappers).
On the other hand, i've rolled yesterday when GR came out an Elec/SR. He seems pretty good, considering my end build has defenses over the softcap. So, with this in mind, he has good AoE damage potential, good Single Target damage and he's generally OK in my book.
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