Stalkers coming up short

Oh, I have no doubt that my Stalkers can take down EBs. I was seeking approval too much. lol When you play with people who think your AT sucks, it kinda puts that idea in me even though I usually say Stalkers are pretty good! Bad mood two days ago. I would have proved a point if I could take down that AV after my friend's stalker died. I ran out of end. I have no set bonuses.

You left one out: Self Mitigation. And if you're going to be that broad, then every melee archetype outside of Epic AT's and Blasters in general are fairly one dimensional. No, what you're talking about are the roles assigned to secondaries and primaries - and by extension to the archetypes to which those power sets are assigned.

It's a fairly obvious thing to point out that - like Scrappers and Brutes - Stalkers have self-mitigation secondaries. They're not intended to buff, debuff, or control anything where it specifically relates to teammates. Some Stalker secondaries have mitigation powers that can affect multiple targets and indirectly help the team, but in the end those powers are there to keep the stalker alive.

I think I'm reading you wrong, but by your statements you seem to feel that stalkers need to deal damage, and controls or buffs/debuffs on top of that self mitigation. The AS debuff/fear notwithstanding, controls and debuffs are not and should not be a stalker's main concern IMHO.

When I talk about dimensions, what I'm referring to is the variety of ways a stalker can fulfill the damage/self mitigation role. You've got ranged attacks in some sets like claws and spines, pseudo-pets in sets like electric melee, stuns in martial arts and EM, +defense powers, unique heavy-hitters, attack/heals and (in DB) combos. Couple that with individual aoe mitigation powers that can be found in over half the secondaries (Counting the sapping +end powers in Elec and EA in addition to Ninjitsu and DA) and Hide and Placate andyou have well more than one way to get the job done. (And I do agree that other secondaries need to be brought more in line with DA and Ninjitsu in terms of AoE mitigation.)

That job is damage (primarily burst damage) and self mitigation. Team mitigation is incidental and should be looked on as a bonus.

So IMO the problem isn't that stalkers are one dimensional, it's that the flexibility they do get in performing their damage-dealing role is marginalized by the fact that their damage is outstripped by another melee archetype that also has better mitigation. You can deal damage in as many ways and as many dimensions as you want, but when that damage is falling behind then you've got a problem.

I still don't know why Stalker's DPS is "naturally" lower than Scrapper unless we have 3 teammates around us closely? Yes, we have higher burst damage but Scrappers have more AoE. I think that's pretty balanced in itself and Scrapper also has more HP, which I am fine with because I think my Stalker survives ok.

Scrapper also has one secondary that provides decent aoe damage in Shield Charge. (And we get Ninjitsu for more controls I guess)

Burst damage is nice when you solo or on a small team but once you take set bonuses into consideration at high level, I feel the usefulness of Assassin Strike is less and less especially on a large team. I find myself not using AS as much past lvl 40 and I seldom solo.

One-dimensional is an incorrect way to describe my friends but I don't like to argue with them. They think Stalker is just about hidden and AS and if you are not doing that, why bother playing a Stalker.

Assassin Strike is very dramatic early on because you can bust up bosses and the like very easily with the burst damage. At some point in the later game, say 38 or so, AS takes a chunk out of the same boss, but usually only serves to make the boss angry.

With set bonus, those Brutes and Scrappers say !@#$ you... I am not waiting for you to set up! Exaggeration of course but yeah, the higher the level you are, the less useful AS is. There are some exceptions of course like ASing a Tsoo Sorcerer is always useful or a Dominator/Corr/MM holding Sorc works just as well.

The biggest threat is against an AV or Hero which Stalker doesn't shine until you factor in teammates.

The problem with this theory, is Scrapper still take down EBs just as fast, if not faster, and safer.

At least mine did.

That said, I've continued to see Stalkers do just fine. Would I like a boost in damage? YES! I won't lie.

Are they going to be looked at on some teams as less than good? Yes. People will look at Stalkers, hen look to the Scrapper or Brute and say "can get more orange numbers and better survivability from the equally enhanced toon"

That said, I've still been invited along on lots of things with my Stalker.

Placate flies in the face of that opinion. But then taunt can expand the one-dimensionality of a Scrapper or Brute....too bad the ST confront on Scrappers isn't that great and most Brutes/Scraps never take that power.

There are many a things you can do with Placate...even more than you could do with Taunt/Confront.

Beyond that, it's all in the playstyle, honestly. I've always talked about how being a Stalker (or similarly, a Blaster), you're not strapped to battle. Most of the times, no one's hinging on you to keep the foes attention. This frees you up to do many other things and take advantage of many other tactics.

There's a difference between roles and dimensions. Simplest example would be a Storm defender and a Force Field defender.

There are one-dimensional sets and multi-faceted sets just like their are AoE primaries and ST primaries.

But honestly, it's all in how you play that determines *how* multi-faceted a character can be.

Stalker Willpower can be pretty one-dimensional...but you can pick up Leadership, throw down Self-Destruct and be all suicidal so you can be vengeance bait only to self-rez with your own vengeance buff. Oh the times I relish when the team starts to wipe because then no one can interfere as I demolish everything. It's fun when you're trying to die.

I probably wouldn't do that on a Tanker and it's kind of weak-sauce on a Brute and Scrappers are all up in their own ego to consider such a tactic. Only those suicidal Blasters with Rise of the Phoenix would resort to such a thing...and it's great!

Man...I got to starting to talk about Stalker Dual Blades and now I'm playing her again (she's still super fun but super squishy...not sure why so many are in love with /Nin, honestly. I admit it feels less squishy than Regen...until you pump lots of recharge into it...maybe I'm a bit spoiled by my /Dark which has turned into a pretty sturdy character)...but now I'm starting to talk about my DM/WP stalker...at this rate, he'll be the next in my queue to play and I'll never get around to playing my Peacebringer, Doms and Tankers...

No I didn't. Staying alive isn't, by itself, a team role. Teams don't invite tankers just because they can keep themselves alive. If they were perfectly invulnerable but had no ability to gain and keep aggro, no one would ever want them on a team. Thus the role they fill is not "self mitigation". It's control.

Not at all. I am talking about "things that teams need to do" which is entirely independent of AT design. I could be talking about another MMO entirely and the same roles would still apply.

Obvious doesn't make it any less true. You were disagreeing with the criticism that Stalkers, in general, are fairly one-dimensional. This is not refuted by defining "one-dimensional" in a way different than the person making the complaint. It doesn't change their complaint. It's arguing semantics. Call it something else if you want. The complaint is that most Stalkers pretty much just do one thing for a team and they don't even do it best.

Intent is meaningless. It's kind of like when people go on about what Stalkers are "meant" to be (assassins, soloists, PvPers, whatever). I could care less. I care about what they CAN do. Caltrops may have been put there to augment my self-defense, but it can stop an entire 8-man team-sized ambush in its tracks. I frankly don't care if it's there because a dev threw a dart at a board covered with power names and it landed on "caltrops". I care what it can do.

Never said anything about being a "main" concern at all. I just happen to like a little variety. I think it's a little late to redesign Stalkers so that they ALL have the same utility as Ninjitsu unless the devs are pretty much willing to set fire to the cottage.