Stalkers coming up short

I've always been a fan of the concept of the Stalker. The single target focused melee AT which essentially sneaks up to the enemy and forcibly ganks a foe out of existence before it realizes it. However, I think the way the Stalker AT was crippled from the onset, makes it dead last in terms of desirability, as a melee AT.

1) Less hitpoints and lower HP cap than any other melee AT.
2) One defensive power removed from each secondary.
3) Interruptable AS.

Fortunately some buffs occurred to the AT (increased damage scale, more crits, some cool AS aftereffects if the target survives, endurance-free Hide, etc) which helped, but those big whoppers above still remain. And I'm okay with losing an AoE attack for primary power sets, to make room for AS. And Placate in place of Taunt is just fine. Here is what I think would help the Stalker become more competitive with the other melee AT's:

1) The same base hitpoints and HP cap as Scrappers.
2) Make Hide an inherent power, similar to Domination, thus allowing missing 9th powers to be re-inserted into these Stalker secondaries. There's no reason why Stalkers should be deprived of Quick Recovery, Death Shroud, etc as an option.
3) Make AS uninterruptable. It's not the most effective single target attack in battle, because of how the damage is reduced, but it's still a nice option to use. Most sets which have a second AoE, or even only one AoE, can fire the power off at any time, even though those generally are similarly not that effective as single target attacks.
4) Specifically for Energy Aura, replace Repulse with Dampening Field. This isn't even a Cottage Rule issue - a knockback aura is anti-thematic to any melee AT, as demonstrated by it's absence from Brute EA.

I think less base and potential HP, missing powers, and our lack of AoE aren't suitably compensated by the ability to Hide and Assassinate.

Rooftop Raider likes scrappers, Leo G like stalkers.

I have a hunch there is room for the perspective right in between no? :P

Anyways, the recent buffs to stalkers makes them very scrapperish, but still maintains the stalker play style. I am not sure further buffs that push stalkers towards playing like scrappers is a good idea, and why I lean against the idea. As for the idea of making AS non interuptible, well they could that, but it is hard to justify that much damage if it was like that. If they re-work snipes like that, I would have no problem with that being done to stalkers AS.

I think making the fear effect from AS more reliable would be on my wish list, and allow stalkers to benefit by the number of teammates in a team rather than in the vicinity for crit.

Let me be clear - I don't want Stalkers to become Scrappers. I want Stalkers to not pale in comparison to the other melee classes. I want Stalkers to retain what makes them unique, but eliminate the things that make us underpowered as an AT. I'm not suggesting we eliminate Hide, Assassinate and Placate, etc.

Telling me I need to "l2p" Stalkers an appeal to authority fallacy. We fall short as a melee AT. And the reason why these complaints have been brought up before is because others recognized how this AT has been shortchanged.

Incidentally, I am not suggesting AS have the same damage out of Hide, as it does while Hidden. I do believe this is the least of the three issues I brought up before, but I think the subject needs to be broached. For example, there could be an alternate animation for AS when used outside of Hide. Just throwing that out there.

Uh, didn't this come up in the (formerly) closed beta forums? That's why brutes got the barely-felt kick in the junk they got in GR; to bring them in between the scrapper and the tanker. The stalker isn't even on the same scale and it's meant to be - but there was not room or time for the changes. The problem is on Castle's radar, though.

(Failing that, you can predict anything will happen, Soom (TN).)

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

To Talen, I wasn't in beta, so I'm completely oblivious to any upcoming improvements that might come to Stalkers, which could have been discussed there.

I wasn't in it until the very last stages. Whenever closed beta forums opened up in the past, I dived in to have a look, this is more or less the same.

Basically, lots of people said stupid things about the roles of tanks and brutes, many tears were shed over an irrelevant nerf, and Castle acknowledged that there's something fundamentally in need of attention in the stalker.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Make the fear a 100% chance, along with the tohit debuff. That gives them a team role as debuffers while increasing solo capabilities.

I could see hide as being an inherent, but would that mean that it still takes the T1 spot on all secondaries?

If it could just be a click power like domination as mentioned that would be sweet, and would leave an open spot to fill for each secondary, which would take a little work to refill since it's all utility powers that would mess with the playstyle (quills, RttC, etc.)

the HP cap on us has been raised before, Personally I am comfotable with it, as most stalkers have a self-heal anyway that doesn't root them or anything.

As far as AoE goes, only MA/ and EM/ lack a single AoE attack.

I'm loving my stalker (lvl 46).

That said, I don't see the lack of AOE as a problem. I've made, and I've teamed with single target oriented scrappers and brutes.

Only two things come to mind on how to make my Stalker better more awesome!

Scrapper damage mods and an increase in in max HP!

Other than that, still playing my stalker. Still loving my stalker. Mind you...I'm IOed out on everything but three attacks (need to be level 50 to put them in) and one power (havent gotten it yet).

When i19 hits, my stalker will become even better! When I free up power choices for concept powers! \o/ I even get one slot back!

Fast Healing, Physical Perfection and Fly (or Hover...still trying to decide which one)! The only thing that could make it better, is if I could fit in my self-rez!

To the OP: The "So... Stalkers" thread is essentially a rehash of ideas along the same vein as this thread, and was created to get Stalker player feedback in response to the melee-AT retuning/rebalancing and Castle's beta post about there not being enough time to address Stalkers.

I don't really feel that Stalkers are that far out of whack, but numerically could use some fine-tuning. In my opinion Scrapper AT mods for melee damage and self-damage buffs would be sufficient, leaving the survivability alone so that they still have less margin for error in survivability, but several people posted concerns about how this would make them closer to Scrappers (to me, the lower hp and hp cap would provide the main difference... a Scrapper would be harder to kill and have more AoE damage due to not losing an AoE).

Like every AT, your feel of its performance is going to depend in some part on your build and how much you put into it, and part of it is going to depend on how you play the character. I can survive nearly as many things on my Stalkers as my Scrappers or Brutes, but the margin for error is considerably lower - it's not that they don't have the tools to survive as much as they run a higher risk when the tools are negated or insufficient.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

I never been a fan of stalkers, i got one to lvl 40 and another to lvl 46, but once the release VEATS. they really put stalkers in the hole....

I really dont see the need to ever team with a stalker when you can team with a VEAT who can Stealth also (after all thats all a stalker was ever good for) and Veats give off team buffs..

Two words: height slider.