Cannot build a good Stalker

Yes, I was there. I remember. Pretty much everything anyone asked for was in the name of team play. My point was not regarding the reason it was given, it was that it isn't something stalkers do for free that's over and above anything anyone else can do. My wording was poor. Regardless of why it was given, its advantages were and are offset by its situational use because it is tied to an Assassin Strike that doesn't kill the target. One of your suggestions in the other thread was that we get more use out of Demoralize. Giving AS more utility on teams will do exactly that.

Sigh... at no point in any of this have I EVER said ANYTHING REMOTELY LIKE Stalkers get nothing on teams. ALL I HAVE SAID is that AS could use some love, and that Stalkers ought to be able to get more use out of it AS A MEANS of buffing their burst damage. I'm perfectly capable of revising my strategy, and in fact have agreed with nearly every one of your diatribes regarding people needing to do that more. But by the same token would it be possible for you to think outside your box a little and see an AS as something that can be used for more than just an Alpha or a Mini Nuke if it isn't at the expense of the rest of the set?

Why is it always one extreme or the other with you? When does asking for more ability to control crits equal asking for the ability to control crits all the time?

There were other ways to make them offensively stronger and retain the controlled aspect of their criticals IMHO. I still think giving them random criticals was a mistake that stepped on scrappers' toes just a little too much, and they would have been much better served by dramatically increasing the crit chance on held or slept targets.

But that's kind of a moot point now, and my opinion of random criticals is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, since I'm not advocating anything that would affect that aspect of our inherent one way or the other.

Whether I like it or not, we have random criticals, and before you get madder at me than you already are, I'm certainly not advocating rolling that change back.

I might be wrong here, but didn't it replace the chance to crit on held or slept targets? Red Tomax still lists it, but I could have sworn that was the case. Either way, I personally would have preferred something more thematic to Stalkers, but nothing I'm suggesting in any way takes anything from that random frickin' damage.

AS is currently the only power that gets an extra burst of damage on top of its critical, so while it does need Hide and/or Placate to capitalize on that damage, it is still the single best way for a stalker to access the burst damage they're famous for. And yes, I'm betting that shortening the animation will make it more appealing to use on teams, since it will essentially frontload that damage a little more. So yes, because its animation won't put as much of a dent in your dps attack strings, it can give you more burst damage by decreasing the penalty to access it and making players more willing to use it in a steamrolling environment.

Then stop lumping me in with people who aren't even participating in this discussion by generalizing my position based on what they've said. I'm not them. I don't ever want to see stalkers be one trick ponies that are tied to AS or any gimmick. I think they have too many gimmicks now as it is. All I'm trying to suggest is that they have incentive to use the tools they already have in a broader range of scenereos. AS is a tool, like any other. Burst damage is a tactic. It also happens to be the rationale behind a good portion of why the archetype is what it is. Increasing the usefulness of that tool and that tactic by a small amount is in no way going to change the way you play if you prefer dps fighting, and it is in no way suggesting that stalkers are gimped. Nor is it arguing for that as the exclusive change.

AS is situational at best on teams, and the arguments I've presented have been to that end and that end alone. You yourself said you agreed that a tweak on the animation time wouldn't be a bad thing, so stop shadow boxing with what has thus far in this discussion been a fairly silent crowd that longs for a return to the one trick pony days of pre-I12 stalking. Test Rat's bitterness notwithstanding, of course.

FWIW, my first suggestion back on page two of that thread was an overpowered and ill-thought suggestion to make criticals unresistable in pve. You see, like you I think our criticals should hurt more than on other archetypes. Whether that's done by making our criticals of a pure and less resisted damage type like toxic or by increasing the scale of our criticals to something over double damage, I'm behind any suggestion that accomplishes this, as it adds not only to our dps, but does it through burst damage. Perfect solution.

See? There you go again over the extreme edge. I'm not advocating sinking enough resources into AS to make it *the* trick pony of anything. I'm trying to demonstrate that - as a tactic - it could be more useful than it is currently. That's not to say it needs a huge amount of work or needs to be the only change or the only tactic.

But Jbikao makes a good point when he says that a large part of the design of every single primary has gone into the Assassin Strike and two other powers that enable us to maximize its potential, (to say nothing of Hide from every one of our secondaries, without which we would almost never be able to land a critical on our AS.) and we really haven't gotten enough payoff from it in return. All I'm saying - and I think all he's saying - is that we should be able to get more out of it than we do, and that - because the design is heavy on cost and low on payoff - it shouldn't come at the cost of our other tools.

Now if you see that as unreasonable, then you're entitled to your opinion and we can agree to disagree. But you're not going to see me accusing you of wanting to strip AS or Placate of any relevance or meaning to stalkers in their current state. I'd appreciate it if you could give me the same benefit of the doubt.

I've never argued so much with someone I largely agree with.

Peace. 'Twas meant to be tongue-in-cheek, which I thought the 'See what I did there?' indicated. You've done a much better job of keeping your cool than I ever would.

Go you.

And you've got largely yourself to blame. Most of your unrest with my post in particular was the rant I *specifically said* wasn't directed at anyone in this thread and even complained about a point that *you* never even backed. And I keep forcing myself to not bother responding to every point for my *and your* sake. If I can do that, so can you.

And the reason why I bring up extremes is because extremes have been used to back the argument to change stalkers for practically the whole thread. "I can't get off AS before it's overkill", "Its too situational" and "AS in a team environment is flawed" are circular extreme arguments used to strengthen eachother when alone, each can and has been addressed.

Ah, and if they ever do speed up AS, it'll probably only be by 1 and a fraction of a second. It'll still be interruptible if you don't time it right after you stop running, it will still not land before those 7 other blasters drop their nukes, it will still do nothing to help team contributions any more than adjusting tactics. The only way you're really going to even notice a difference is if they shave off 2 or more seconds and honestly, I can't get behind AS being that fast...

Stalkers still have a 20% chance to crit held or slept foes in PvP. But honestly, a 20% chance to crit a slept foe was and is practically useless.

Why? PVP? I'm getting a little sick of changes in pve being affected by the ghost of what pvp used to be in this game. I'd rather they removed the extra crit damage (be it through removing the unresisted flag or whatever it took) in pvp and shortened the recharge/interrupt of AS to make it more useful to ninety percent of the populace.

Even among players who do pvp, it's not like AS is the single power that defines the set, either. In fact, it's widely known as little more than a noob killer.

And if it isn't pvp, then what is it? How would a recharge/interrupt on AS that actually makes it useful on teams overpower it in pve?

EDIT - Now that I think about it I think about it increasing the range of AS from 7 to 10 or 12 feet would actually help as well, making even a 1 second change in the animation time somewhat useful.

I personally would have preferred if they had increased that 20% to something closer to 60 or 80 percent in lieu of random scaling crits, but it is what it is. I agree that as it stands it's practically useless.

Too many subtleties get lost in text. Nature of the forums, and all.

No offense taken, although I am rather irked at myself for not getting the humor right off.

Sorry if I misread.

I think a combination of 2.67s AS, uninterrupable, and plus easier way to get back to Hidden is a good way to make Stalker more "assassin-like". I think our current damage is fine. I just want to have easier access to AS. I don't want to just use once in a mob and then wait for 8 seconds of doing "nothing" or just simply scrap out with "inferior" scrapper damage.

Another idea that I brought up is changing Build Up from 90s, 10s to 45s, 5s. This way Stalker have more opportunities for Burst damage which is what this AT is built for. Burst damage allows us to take out single target faster.

I understand you can use Build Up while on the run but if a team moves fast, a lot of times the re-hide duration slows you down and sometimes when you find a target, it may be target by a Brute/Dominator already. This is fine because everyone is used to "over-kill" on a team (I've seen Brute using Knockout Blow on a minion with only 5% health left) but what is not fine is that Stalker can't get back to Assassin Mode due to all the restrictions. Placate is ok. You can only blind one target. Placate takes a bit more than 1s, and then you stand there for 4s to use AS. That's almost 6s just activate what Stalker is good at and it's only a single target. Placate also penalizes your friend because the aggro is sent away. I've killed my friend this way before and I am sure all of us have. You placate a boss thinking that you can kill him quicker but the aggro from the boss is sent to somebody else who is dying, and because Placate + AS takes 6s, your friend dies.


If "real team" means super team, then even Scrapper probably won't contribute as much as Corr/Defender stacking buffs/debuffs. I actually don't think Scrapper survives all that better than Stalker but it's just me.

That's true. I just read this thread through and the call for "show when and how Stalkers are better than Scrappers" was answered thoroughly both in terms of math and situation.

Moreover, the argument that Scrappers will out damage and survive a Stalker means Stalkers are useless is immensely flawed. Why's that you say? Because it's been proven over and over that Brutes will out damage and out survive a Scrapper... with one exception. A Scrapper can burst damage on the first mob. Oh, what do you know? That's what the Stalker does better than the Scrapper.

If the argument held any water at all (to denounce Stalkers in lieu of Scrappers), it would follow that you should never roll a Scrapper again in lieu of Brutes. Scrapper's only scrap of dignity left would be that they are moderate in both ST burst and AoE/large team/survivability/etc. So why ever roll a Scrapper again?

Again the argument makes no sense. Mazel tov on making more Scrappers, Stalkers, and even Brutes.

PvP is one of the reasons, yes. No, I'm not a PvPer but then I'm not going to take the selfish route and lobby for changes that will practically **** someone else's part of the game just for one insey-wittle second shaved off of AS that no one will ever notice.

Want another reason why? Because any skill needed left to perform adequately on your Stalker is practically stomped into the mud. Shaving off practically all of AS's cast time, making it uninterruptible and auto-hit dumbs down my Stalker game even more than the random crits dumbed down 'scrapping' for you. I'd much prefer needing to actually practice the skill than it just being another click.

Honestly, the reason I'm even still talking is because I enjoy the style balance we have. If we're somehow lacking compared to the other melees, I'd much prefer adjusting the AT in an alternate direction, ramping up the AT's utility and team contributions in buffs/debuffs and perhaps add new advantageous tactical maneuvers, not just ramp up DPS. If you think about it, the reason Brutes were brought down a tad and Tanker's mitigation upped a tad was because the 3 standard melees were just so close (and they still are pretty close). I've no doubt, if Stalkers were getting their damage upped, you'll may see Brutes and/or Scrappers adjusted down as well...and I wouldn't want to see that 'cause I'm a player of more ATs than just Stalkers.

Honestly, why would you prefer this? It would suck against anything that is mez resistant, suck on teams that don't have a lot of control, more or less force you to take the patron hold, etc.

Why does Stalker performance have to come with all these strings attached when a Scrapper can run around anywhere doing higher melee damage all the time AND being tougher to kill? Isn't AS situational enough?

Bear in mind I'm not proposing that AS's activation time be stripped to nothing in conjunction with making it uninterruptible. I wouldn't want it to be made brain dead easy, either. And an AS with a 1 second animation would be overkill.

But I do think a balance can be reached that can make it less situational. Increasing the range to 10 feet and normalizing the animation to match and just exceed the interrupt of 2 seconds would go far enough for me, I think. Why? It gives me just a bit more flexibility with where I stop when running up to a mob, letting me start the animation a little bit before other melee types are in range, making the one second that would theoretically be shaved off feel like a bit more. Not sure if 10 feet would be enough for an effect to be felt, though. Maybe 12, but I can't reconcile that number too well in my mind, so I went with 10.

I also don't think I'd be out of line in asking for the demoralize to go off even if the target is killed. Then at least there'd be some benefit to assassinating a half dead target.

I'd also still like to see more damage from our criticals, but then we both agree on that point.

With regard to PVP, I don't think anything I said would gut any serious pvp'er's playstyle in the least, and it wasn't my intention to be selfish. Almost no one stands still long enough to be the victim of an AS, to the point that most experienced stalkers rarely use it as a main option. I have a feeling that if an AS were made easier to leverage - whether with a shorter animation time or a shorter interruptible time or some combination thereof - at the expense of its bonus damage in pvp that most pvp stalkers would happily adjust their game, or I would never have voiced the thought.

If I'm wrong, and even one pvp'er comes in to say differently, I'll happily retract the statement.

And thanks for being the one "still talking." We may have locked horns, but it's been a good experience for me. I never end a debate with exactly the same views I brought to it, and anyone who reads the whole of our exchange will notice that while I think what I said remained fairly consistent - my viewpoint has undergone some change. You've made some good points, and I'm glad for every opportunity to change my thinking even a little.

Because archetypes that can leverage controls and sleeps are some of the more popular archetypes in the game (with the notable exception of dominators). I doubt any team you run these days would be short on control. Even mez resistant enemies can be held by a single controller with an overlapping mez effect.

And control archetypes aren't the only ones with holds and sleeps. Tankers, blasters, Kheldians, SoA's, Corruptors and Masterminds off the top of my head are some examples of archetypes that have holds and sleeps mixed in as secondary effects. And epics aren't the only place where stalkers can get holds and sleeps. Ninjitsu scrappers can also use Blinding Powder for short duration sleeps and holds. It would be nice if the other secondaries can say the same, but what are you going to do? One thing I forgot to mention is that I would have also liked to have seen that crit ability extend to stuns. That alone would make a huge difference in the utility of the feature.

Now having said that, the I12 changes were made in a very different gaming environment than we have today. There wasn't a tremendous amount of cooperative play, Going Rogue was still just a pipe dream so far as the playing populace was concerned, and Dominators were as unpopular as stalkers, so the chances for holds and sleeps were drastically lower than in today's game. So I understand why they went the route they did.

Hindsight is 20/20. No going back now, really, so there's not much point in discussing it any further except for my pointless rambling, at which I'm unfortunately somewhat gifted.

Because Stalkers aren't Scrappers? Seriously, you call them strings, and I call them opportunities. If I wanted what scrappers have with stealth on top, I'd just soft cap a scrapper, drop in a stealth IO in superspeed and run with it. But if I can have a situation where a controller or dominator can mass hold a spawn so I can wade in doing massive amounts of burst damage without having to worry about going into hide, well... I'd buy that for a dollar.

Oh yeah. I agree with this. I think the mobs should be even more "demoralized" if their leader got killed in one hit! It fits the theme.

I can only rub my temples in frustration and move on from the suggestion about the slight modifications to AS...

As for its effect in PvP: The damage of an attack, I believe, is based on the length of the cast time and not the recharge of the power like in PvE(i.e. Midnight Grasp from Dark Melee does less damage than Eagle's Claw from Martial Arts because one animates longer than the other...that's just one example) So making AS quicker to use is also making it do significantly less damage.

I'm sure there are other effects such a change would have on Stalker PvP and they aren't all good.

That Scrapper still wouldn't have AS or crits from hidden, no placate, stealth would take longer to unsuppress, and his AoEs will always have base crit chance.

In the situation where a controller or dom mass holds a spawn, it really would matter very little if you crit all the time on the enemy. The spawn is neutralized. Your use, to neutralize difficult/annoying targets, isn't really that necessary now. What are you gonna do? Target through the dom and just hit everything he holds? Now you're *really* not doing what Stalkers are intended to do. Perhaps you'd start outdamaging that Scrapper or Brute though? But then honestly, how often do you think you'll be in a spawn where everything is just mezzed for the pickings? Yeah, this is a one of those extremes that you don't like people dwelling on.

Doing amazing damage on mezzed foes is a nice trick, but not particularly the aim of the AT, you think? We're around to eliminate threats, afterall.

As if Ninjitsu wasn't the only stalker secondary worth using as it is.

You want back a mechanic that was pretty much only usable teamed, and then still practically worthless?

Isn't demoralized enough worthless garbage for you?

And I'm saying it's entirely possible that AS - regardless of how much damage it does - has limited usefulness in pvp outside of killing non-pvpers who stand around and let it happen. Shortening the animation might lower the damage in pvp, but I'm not sure many pvp'ers would care much, given its limited use in pvp.

But you know what? I'm not going to make any claims to being a very good pvper, so I'll concede the point.


Don't bother picking that garbage apart - it wasn't intended to be a suggestion, or anything. Not worth debating.

I can't claim to speak from experience but, with travel suppression occurring whenever you attack or are attacked and the fact there is no Mez protection, only mez resistance so using immobilizes or holds not only will always happen when used (unless previously mezzed, then mez suppression kicks in) but also suppress travel, I can imagine it not being as hard as it used to be to get someone to stand still for that fraction of a second to queue up AS.

Depends. Aren't even Doms complaining about being unable to hold some of the new Praetorian enemies? And besides, I can tell you it is not often I am attacking a held/slept enemy despite your assurances I should never likely be on a team that lacks control. And what about the steamrolling teams we've been talking about all this time. I don't have time to assassinate a boss but I have time to wait for the Dom to hold/sleep my target and then have time to take advantage of the increased critical rate?

Not implementing an inherent that unfairly disadvantages powersets which don't feature controls would be a start. Stuns were excluded from the old mez-crit for the very good reason that not all powersets had them. And there was no Elec Melee at the time so the only sleep available was Ninjitsu's Blinding Powder. Given its base 180s recharge and low mag 2 sleep, this probably wasn't considered much of an imbalance. Hardly the difference between Golden Dragonfly and Total Focus (which at the time could one-shot stun a typical boss).

It is an unreliable method of achieving the rather simple goal of increasing Stalker damage output. Basically I am gimped whenever I am on a team that does not feature strong controls. Meanwhile the Scrapper charges in as always and gets his 100% reliable better damage than I have no matter what the situation.

That they are not Scrappers is not justification for requiring a level of team dependence that NO other AT currently is saddled with. Seriously, even the Defender inherent just got made less team-dependent. Now it provides a benefit no matter what the team size. Only the nature of the benefit changes. And even that is more of a bonus than a critical piece of their performance picture. What you're suggesting is that the number, type, and competence of teammates should directly affect the Stalker's damage output (what is supposed to be their core competency and reason for existence!) in a way beyond what anyone else has to deal with currently. That is simply unfair and why I wasn't sorry to see the mez-crit go. Goodbye and good riddance!

I was talking about what *I thought* would have been some of the good aspects had they gone a different route than random criticals back in I-12, but it was never meant to be a suggestion. If for some strange reason you're still curious about how I'd respond you can always send me a pm, but it really won't add anything to the discussion at hand.

I should probably just delete that post.

Do you guys feel that Stalker should be more about "planned Critical" than "random Critical"? Random critical is nice in a way that you don't need to think about it but that's also Scrapper's category.


To me, I would rather see a bar that fills up to fuel Stalker's "Killer Instinct". When the "instinct" is full, Stalker can unleash a planned Critical hit, much like Placate. And this Killer Instinct bar fills up quicker with more party members (which improves Stalker in a team setting).


I know this idea won't fly but I like it! This way my Stalker can plan out who should receive critical = who should die faster! This bar thing sounds complicated to implement and it may interfer with Placate. I never like Placate that much anyway. I never take Placate until I am way past lvl 26. I sometimes don't like blinding the target with Placate. I want the aggro to stay on me but I have no control of the "blind" part. It would be nice if we can have an ability to control Critical(s) during Battle and not just during Hidden.


Scrapper is all about raw damage and random criticals. Fine.
Brute is all about maintaining fury to deal more damage. Fine.
Tanker is all about controlling the situation by taking damage for the team. Fine.

Stalker should be all about "eliminating target(s)" ASAP in a "planned" situation. When your Killer Instinct is up, your next attack is a critical and it can follow the same formula for aoe/cone. I don't want a "button" like Domination to activate. I just need an icon to show me when Killer Instinct is up because I can control which attack I want to use when the icon shows up.

I am very much in favor of the planned critical. When I want to tear off in a red haze of random fury I'll play one of my many scrappers. I like the tactical mindset of planned criticals, and when I'm in that mood I'd rather play stalkers.

Having said that, I can accept that the scaling criticals can be planned. When I look around and see my team in close range I'll know to focus on the biggest target there because of the increased critical chance, and I can accept that for what it is, so long as that is as random as it gets.

I'm against increasing the crit radius for the same reason, however.


I would hate to see yet another bar added to another archetype's UI, and I am dead set against any further "gimmickie" additions to our archetype.

However, what if we did away with the team-dependent crit radius in favor of a scaling and stackable chance to crit after every successful hit? Sort of the way that defiance 2.0 buffs a blaster's damage with each attack?

Eh. Sounds awful gimmickie, but if it comes in place of the team-dependent crits.... ?

...But then what about teaming incentive? Bah. It's been a long day and I'm obviously too tired to brainstorm. Let me think on that one a bit before I put it in the suggestions thread.

Regardless of what I say, though, Jib, toss the Killer Instinct Bar over in that thread as well. You never know!

Hehehe...I know...another Bar. Well, technically, they don't have to make a bar. Just make the icon appear when Killer Instinct appears, much like how they show "Hidden" status.

Basically, Killer Instinct fills up at a normal rate when you are attacking but when you are not attacking, it fills up faster. This is like how you get back to Hidden status by basically doing nothing. By doing nothing, it means you are trying to find another target to eliminate if you put it that way. And if you have more teammates, the natural rate it regenerates goes faster. Basically, the rate is to match Stalker's current "random critical" chance. I don't know the math but let's assume Stalker can randomly critical once every 20s but with more teammates, Stalker's 33% chance to critical becomes one critical in 10s or less. I suck at math but that's the basic idea.

The idea is to allow Stalker to score critical in a planned situation rather than relying on "random chance".


And which thread should I put this in?

I am trying to avoid getting bonus when Stalker attacks because that would be like Brute/Blaster. I don't want Stalker to be "forced" to keep "scrapping" if you know what I mean.

Stalker has natural critical chance and when it's up, your next attack is just like "hidden status". You can still play your Stalker like a Scrapper because when you have Killer Instinct, you get a critical so it's like a random critical if you don't plan on how/where to use it.

However, if I see KI is up, I may change target to use my Eagle Claw on a minion because I know that would probably kill him in ONE hit! No more random chance and less Placating.

The Killer Instinct icon doesn't have to appear on the upper right hand corner. It can be right above Stalker's head... I guess. This way it's easier to see.

I don't know. I just like this idea but it may be too complicated to change after 6 years. We probably just get more random critical chance so just play like a Scrapper and hope for more critical. :P It works but just less "Assassin" like as there is almost no "strategy" involved.

But if I know I get Critical once every 10s, I will definitely watch for it and switch target necessary and I don't suffer from being attacked and lose "hidden".