The Ultimate fix for stalkers.

Imho....the 3 things the dev's really need to do to help Stalkers out...is:


1.) Make Hide an inherent slottable power, keeping it's SAME values (of course).
2.) Whatever power the dev's choose to replace the "current" hide with....make it useful for a STALKER <---emphasis on...useful for a Stalker!
3.) Make build up 100% +dmg (...and no one say anything about AT damage modifiers, I know all about that and their relation to build up...it still should be 100% +dmg for Stalkers though.)


This would be an excellent "start" if you ask me, and at least a step in the right direction.

From there, maybe they could consider making ALL Stalker versions of Build Up refresh as quickly as Claws' Build Up (Claws = 72 sec, all others = 90 sec) and of course somewhat adjusting Claws' Build Up, to maybe 60 seconds. In the end, high level game, it's actually a somewhat "minor" change once all late game +rech factors are taken into consideration. For example; the difference between Claws' Build Up + Hasten + Quickness vs. MA's Build Up + Hasten + Quickness is only 6.2 seconds....but this little change would be uber helpful in leveling up a Stalker in PvE. Game breaking? Hell no. Helpful nonetheless? Hell yes.


All these changes added together, and I think the Stalker AT would be right where it should be.


Anywho...

Which incidently, is the name of my rad/traps corr

ahhh, someone's getting pissy.

Scrappers don't want stalker EM proliferated. They want the real EM proliferated. Or at least did before the ET nerf.

I won't disagree, I think Demoralize is a great asset to teams when it gets applied. The fear component takes the alpha out of the fray should you open for the team, and the -ToHit is always a good thing to have. What a lot of people are referencing to when they say Stalker's lack AoE is AoE damage. I'm a big fan of the Demoralize debuff, but unfortunately it's hard (for me at least) to say Stalkers have good AoE with just that part to back it up. When powersets get proliferated and great AoE powers are replaced with AS and Placate, it's a rather debilitating counterpoint to that argument.

He's actually got you there, Dechs. I understand where you both are coming from but I have to agree with Strato; ElM is just as AoE-oriented on a Stalker as it is a Scrapper. All Stalkers lost in the port over to redside was Lightning Clap, and not many people take that thing anyway. Your post saying the set would be more ST-oriented was a little baffling and Strato hit the nail on the head with what I wanted to say.

I offer the same advice to you.

The AoE debuff does not do damage. The single target focus I am referring to is with regards to damage. AoE debuff does not bring enemies down faster, which is what teams seem to care about.

Let me say this very clearly, because you're not understanding what I'm saying. More single target focused does not always mean "less AoE." I have an elec stalker because I couldn't make an elec scrapper. I wanted more single target damage, and going with a stalker gave me that.

The stalker, despite being elec melee, is still more single target focused than the elec scrapper.

The perception problem with stalkers is due to some of the players who refuse to actually *scrap.* Yes, you're squishy. You can still fight. Instead, though, we've had too many people for whome the playstyle is AS-Placate - run off and "scout the map" while everyone's fighting give the Stalker a non team friendly reputation.

Wouldn't argue with Hide being made inherent, though. It'd have to stay slottable, however, and even though this is being done with Fitness, I'm not sure the devs want to start drag-racing down that road. (Fitness. Then "Stalkers get hide, what do we get?" elsewhere - Taunt? Build up? etc.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

What? You search for your name on the boards? How vain. You can't be just reading the Stalker forums as you hold no interest in them nor bother to try and understand them.



This is relevant to the statement you quoted.

PS: How's that rep workin' for ya

Honestly this is one of those things that I wonder if it was EVER really common. Kind of like the pure healer who just follows people around with heal on auto, not even buffing or attacking. I mean, I've seen support people who only have one attack plenty of times but never someone who merely heals (unless it was someone's 2nd box auto-follower).

Similarly, if I've ever seen a Stalker on a team who just scouted the map to click glowies or actually did AS-and-run-to-Hide it would be the rare exception. Not the rule.

I don't see the need for it, but that's probably because I am a Ninjitsu junkie and don't know what I am missing. I'm sure being able to take QR as a Regen Stalker would be nice. That plus inherent Stamina would be lots of fuel for a high-recharge build.

As for "Stalkers get Hide, what do we get?" I would chuckle about anyone being envious of Stalkers and point out that when you're buffing someone up to be competitive with everyone else, then giving everyone else some candy as well doesn't really make a lot of sense. I say "I would" chuckle about it that is, except everyone else has a better lobby than Stalkers do. Scrappers piped up about being marginalized in GR beta, even including some Stalker envy (which I *did* have to laugh about)... but look what happened.

BAM! Brute nerfs.

Good lord, we've been through this. It wasn't a full-fledged "nerf." It brought the AT in line with the other melee AT's and made Fury generation and playing a Brute as a whole more efficient.

1: I hit the New Posts. I've been watching this thread for a while. It's of course no surprise to anyone that you'd fail to grasp something that simple. Not that I haven't nor won't in the future search off of my name. "bill z" shows me any replies made to any post I've made. As for being vain, it's hard not to be when there's people like you around with which to compare myself.

2: Apparently my reputation around here is just fine. Unlike you, I'm rarely called out for being completely ignorant.

3: I'm in the crowd that wants everything proliferated that makes sense to proliferate. An opinion apparently shared by many in that thread. My point stands: Stalker EM ain't EM. It's EM with its only AoE yanked. Nobody wants that. The other half of the point stands as well. Far fewer scrappers are clamoring for EM's proliferation since the ET nerf. We used to see a new thread on it weekly. Not so much anymore.

And in the same thread, people are asking for Ninjitsu for Scrappers and Super Strength for Stalkers.

Asking for stuff like that (including EM for Scrappers) is like wearing a speedo. Just because you can doesn't make it a good idea.

Fine. Call it an "adjustment" if the word "nerf" is too loaded. I don't really have an opinion on the change since I don't play Brutes. Just saying that when players of popular ATs like Scrappers get concerned about something... stuff happens. And in that very GR beta thread I am talking about, Scrapper fans were even chiming in about stuff the Stalkers got in their last "adjustment" as if something was therefore owed to Scrappers now.

You don't balance scales (that are currently out of balance) by adding the same weight to both sides. That won't stop people from wanting new stuff whenever they see someone else getting buffed though. Justified or not. And if it's a popular AT asking... just saying. I wouldn't be surprised.

The removal of the rep system doesn't negate the fact that for many posters the level of their rep was accurate with their usefulness on the forums. There were, of course, exceptions usually easily determined by the number of posts found in the forum games section as well as those with maxed out negative rep usually being there as per personal request.

Back on point, yes, prove me wrong. Prove that the number of characters being created with EM now is just as high as it was before the ET nerf across tanks and brutes. Please, give me that data, I'd love to see it.

For my part, I've created one brute that used EM since the nerf that was intended to be taken blueside. She was deleted before she hit 30.

The put-heal-on-auto-and-/follow-the-tank thing, I've seen dozens of times. Heck, I've been in PUGs with multiple of them at once. So those, I can vouch for definitely existing. Stalkers that 'scout the map' and do nothing but AS and re-hide, though... well, those I haven't really seen since the revamp. Even then, they were kinda rare.

Can you stop beginning your posts with snarky questions? (Check out that irony :P)

Rep system is gone, argument invalid. Drop it.

People have asked to have the Stalker versions of EM ported to Scrapper because -- surprise -- the Stalker versions have already had their Critical effects (such as the non-health-draining ET) factored. It would make porting the set over easier with the exception of Stun and Whirling Hands, which would need a Critical calculation done in order to make it a Scrapper-viable set. Porting the set over from Brutes/Tankers would need those Critical values recalculated and their damage values adjusted as Scrappers have higher base damage than Brutes (fury notwithstanding) and Tankers.

If you wanted Kinetics ported over to Masterminds (another dumb idea, despite the awesome fun it would be) you wouldn't ask for the Defender version as it's far too powerful and would need massive reworking. You'd ask for the Corruptor version as it's closer to the way it'd need to be in order to be acceptable on a Mastermind. See the point?

I play a multitude of Brutes, and that's exactly what it was. People only cried "NERF" because they saw numbers being reduced. The adjustment made put Brutes where they should have been all along: between Tankers and Scrappers. It was not a nerf. Forum trolls nerdraging does not an actual debuff make.

Any time I've ever teamed with a Stalker, they were in the thick of the fight right next to my Brute kicking *** with the rest of the team. Always fun to open the fight on the Boss of a spawn and watch his health drop to 20% after the Alpha. Thanks Mr. Stalker!

And as far as the heal-follow-healer, I usually ask them to actually work, and if they don't or offer me some BS I remove them from the team and find another support character to aid us.

Teams care about mitigation. Especially early fight mitigation, where most of the danger lies. Damage is not all teams care about. Teams like Radiation Infection and Enervating Field. I doubt they would like them as much if they were not AoEs. When AS was just single target damage, it was a nice gimmick, but hardly useful on teams. The demoralize effect, IMO, is a large benefit to teams and I have not found anyone who disagrees with that (it does not seem like you disagree, although it does seem like you are trying to say that no one else would think demoralize is useful).

I understand your words fine, you seem to have trouble understanding yourself or deciding what it is you want to say (or maybe your are simply thinking more stuff in your head and failing to type it).

Early on in the thread your position was that stalkers lack AoE, saying, "the vast majority of stalker melee sets have zero ability to damage multiple targets at a time." Now that it has been pointed out you were mistaken, you are changing your meaning. It is a good thing that you want to alter your position now that you can see you were in error. It is not a good thing that you claim I failed to understand you, especially since one can simply go back and read what you wrote and see how much different it is from your current position.

I am glad to see that you have been dissuaded of your false notions. I am glad you have changed your position a bit. I actually agree with the statement that stalkers are, in general, more single target focused than other armored ATs. I do not agree that it is solely due to the lack of AoE damage powers. That is a contributing factor only, and one that can be easily worked around by taking the sets that do not lack AoE attacks.

I do believe that a single target focus is a "bad" thing (and when I speak of AoEs, they do not need to be just damage powers), although I feel the game has room for that variety, but it should be a small minority of sets (which seems to hold true for all the ATs except stalkers, where it is about even, maybe slightly in favor of a low amount of AoE effects).

I believe that most stalker combinations could use more AoE effects in order to allow them to be more interesting on teams. Those effects can be enemy focused or ally focused. They can be added to current primary or secondary powers or something can have a small revamp (such as the suggestion to make Hide inherent and then adding something).

For slightly more detail:
Ninjitsu and DA are decent representations of sets with some nice AoE effects.
Regen and SR are good representations of sets that lack AoE effects outright.
Energy is a good middle of the road set.
Electric, IMO, lost out on a lot when it was designed for stalkers, the damage aura also aids in keeping enemy end drained after a Power Sink (as well as encouraging them not to attack others on your team).
Willpower, IMO, lost out less than Electric overall, but lost any ability to affect in an AoE.

Three of seven sets have no AoEs. One has only one AoE and Power Sink without Lightning Field is actually not all that great as an AoE effect, and instead functions more as just an end recovery tool. Energy Aura has two AoEs, but Energy Drain suffers the same problem as Power Sink, which only leaves Repulse. In the end, only two out of seven stalker secondaries have a nice variety of AoE effects, with a third having a modest contribution from a KB toggle (which is an AoE at first, but becomes much more likely to be a single target power after use).

Electric and Spines have a good amount of AoE attacks.
Dual Blades has a good amount when you include combos.
Broadsword, Ninja Blade, Claws, Dark, and Kinetic have a small amount of AoE.
MA and Energy have just demoralize.
Three of ten sets with good AoE. Two of ten with bad AoE. Five that fall in between somewhere, but definitely closer to the lower end of AoE effects. Not a terrible representation across the range from single target to AoE, but I do feel it is weighted too far on the low end. That does not mean I think the attack sets should be changed, it is just further demonstration that as a whole, the AT is low on AoE effects.

Whatever happens, if anything changes, I hope it does not end up being just add more damage, as that is the least interesting of adjustments, IMO.

When I call something a "nerf" I am not nerd-raging. To me it just means something was made less effective than it used to be. Justified or not. It is the opposite of "buff".

Maybe I just don't notice them then because I don't think I've ever teamed with one who was only healing people and not also at the very least using their entire secondaries. Then again, I've only recently started spending much time at all blueside.

But...playing my Stalker to 50, and still playing it, I find that's all Stalkers really need. A higher damage mod!

Seriously.

Having teamed with other stalkers, that's all I wish they had. The ability to bring a bit more damage.

Personally, I don't find the demoralize useful unless I'm solo on my own stalker. I hardly ever notice its effects with another stalker on the team.

Likewise with Radiation Infection and Enervating Field. They just don't do much in most cases (in high level play), until you get to the AV. The debuffs just don't stick around long enough to matter otherwise.

Yes, I was mistaken, and I mentioned that. I was ignoring the cone attacks in my initial assertion that stalkers lacked any AoE.

My first experience with a stalker was claws, which I did not level high enough to get shockwave. The lack of any AoE capability ultimately caused me to delete the character. I have tried several other combinations, but the next one to stick was elec stalker, which leaves me with a happy medium of single target and AoE damage.

I apologize for the harsh comment about not understanding me. That was a bit out of line.

I really don't think my position has changed. I've had more than a few mistaken facts along the way, but the message has remained the same.

I stated, and will continue to state, that stalkers are undervalued on teams. The primary factor for this is the single target focus of the stalker AT. Apples to apples, a comparable scrapper will put out more consistent AoE damage (as well as be a bit tougher), which is more valued to most teams than the utility of demoralize and some spike damage.

I was wrong to state that so many sets lacked any AoE. This much I have admitted. The fact remains that, regardless of powerset, the stalker will be more single target focused.

I don't think stalkers need any changes to become more AoE oriented in general. You can't really change that. Let the sets dictate how AoE centric your character is.

I do feel that stalkers need to do more damage. Simply put, there is a scale right now. As the AT loses toughness from tank to scrapper, the damage increases. Stalkers are the outlier, in that they have less mitigation than scrappers, but not a clear cut advantage in damage output.

If the damage of stalkers was better than scrappers, then the lack of AoE could be overlooked.

Well apparently I'm suppose to be prissy so no.

Lol so when someone gets proven wrong (such as the rep system being mainly for griefing or useless +rep circle jerk games and only minorly related to anything related to worth or as a gauge to grade others...that's why it was removed) we can just say 'invalid argument. drop it.'? Yeah, I have a feeling I won't ever get that courtesy from you guys.

Invalid argument. Drop it.

Not good enough? Well, considering Stalker EM was proliferated from the Tanker version with the same values except with extra flags to work with crits, placate and hide, you have a pretty useless argument. Even porting EM from Stalkers to Scrappers, they'd have to rewrite every crit value and all the flags since Scrappers don't get placate or hide or scaling crits but instead get different crit values for minions vs others. It'd be just as much work delete and add those values as it would be to delete the fury/gauntlet values to add Scrapper flags. It's a moot point. Without changing/adding values to cover the ATs' inherents, the only difference is power order.

To say the rep system was accurate for many posters then turn around and name more exceptions that we all know outnumbered the first case (you also forgot the posters that turned rep off so no one could see how much/little rep they had) is contradictory.

This is stupid. I can give you evidence that there are still a decent size of players playing EM but to expect the same number (or even close) belies the results you want to see. What about those new sets introduced to those ATs? Or even lowered requirements to play EATs.

No, the proof you want is impossible. But that still doesn't mean no one likes or wants to play the set.

Doing a good job so far.

Except... the rep system is gone.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

Is Energy Melee gone? Was it removed due to problems? Was it exploited by players to affect other players outside of PvP?

... no? Then your argument, and the one you just presented, is still invalid. If you can't properly relate it to what the present subject is, don't.

Nice!

Edit: Just looked it up and had someone give me insight, so...

While Scrappers don't get scaling criticals, the powers themselves aren't the source of the scaling itself. The Stalker inherent Assassination provides the scaling bit.

So you're wrong.

I'm not the one that keeps bringing it up. I only mentioned it in passing, then clarified the implied meaning. If you have such an issue with my posts, then stop misinterpreting them. One way to do this is to just stop trying to interpret what you want to hear.

Aaaaand, considering Stalkers still have a crit chance on held or slept foes in PvP which is indeed a value added to the AT's powers to simulate their inherent...

...I say just stop trying to be right all the time.