The Ultimate fix for stalkers.

Just remove the long animation time on AS and remove the interrupt.

i dont agree that caltrop would fix much...a small area of effect isnt going to stop ambushes at all...they will still shoot you and jump over the caltrops to get to you. And if the ambushes are big enough they will surpass the maximum effect by the caltrops and walk through them as if they are not there.

The caltrops make things run...so if you have a tank or a balster who like to use area of effects to hit large groups you will be as effective as the Tanks with super strength that scatter everything with the hand clap....or as useful as the storm power user who uses gale on groups you are killing for their measly 5 points of damage while blowing them away from you.

So anywise i just cant agree on this thought.

I think if anything they should put in some form of ability that lets you leave a replacement behind...works like a huge area of effect placate that would slightly heal you and slightly give you back energy that you can pull off once every 30 minutes.

That in my mind would not only fit the stalker motife on all combinations....but also make it possible to actualy have some form of OMG protection to let the stalker escape if they need to.....maybe even escaping a team whipe to come back and help the rest fo the group.

I said slight back energy and a slight heal becasue that would ensure you dont die from some stupid damage over time effect and also give you something versus the last shots from enemies after they are placated.

Like i said...that in my mind what i suggest would fit the concept alot better then caltrops...
I am sorry but i just feel caltrops are about as good as using jump kick or flurry they are useful i guess...but not really the pick thats going to do much for you. and would in no way be ultimate....more pathetic then anything else.

Sure they might be useful with the new bahavior adjustment facility....but go figure...thats like one thing out of many encounters.

They should just have Hide shed aggro.

"But if it did that people could solo almost anything in the game by killing one, running and rehiding, and then killing another!"

My response would be people can already solo almost anything in the game, and no other AT would be tempted to wait 8 seconds between each enemy in a spawn to do so (since some ATs aren't even tempted to wait 8 seconds between each enemy spawn). Not that stalkers need to... but I don't see how there could be any harm in allowing that style of play.

one poster asked why this thread is still alive since people don't play stalkers anymore. I think this sort of sums up this new tf, trial, farming world coh has become. Not that this is a bad thing though. But certainly, stalkers are, IMHO, more rare now.

Instead of going through all the problems the AT has (some will disagree that there are any), let me propose a change and lets hypothetically see how this will affect stalkers in various situations we find ourselves in in coh.

forgive me if this has been mentioned before, or a similar idea proposed, I suggest that stalkers be given an attribute similar to fury for brutes. The major difference is that stalker fury builds while hidden in a slow incremental way. Before I get into more details of stalker fury, I will propose that the Max value be 500% bonus over the normal critical as of now. If dam caps needs to be changed than that's ok cuz my other proposal is that this damage boost does not work with external buffs. Similar to seeing which defense type offers the best protection. The game will choose the greater between base plus self enhanced with fury, and base plus external buffs.

This allows stalkers to play similarly to before under team buffed situations.

Now for the nuances. Lets limit the fury generation by hide to 250%. To get more than 250% the stalker needs to do some extraordinary things. Assassin strike on bosses add 50, ebs 75, av's and gm's 100, leauts 10 and mobs 5. And how do you lose fury you might ask? Aggro. Not being hit or attacked, simply acquiring aggro. For each mob that you aggro, you lose exactly what you would have gained if you AS'd them. So the burden is on how well the assassin and the team manages aggro.

Mmm...

I actually would be lead to believe that Caltrops should be a standard ability for Stalkers, case in hand, I am thinking of the Knives of Artemis. As a rule of thumb, Developers make very good power selections for ATs, in many occassions in the past, I have paid close attention to what power sets and specific powers the mobs of effective groups utilize, and then base some of my designs on those. Knives clearly exploit the benefits of caltrops, and to extend IMO are used in excess.

I believe Caltrops is a good way to slow the enemy, since I do believe the Stalker to be a very weak Scrapper, whose burst damage is in general mediocre, all that dps sacrifice and can't kill a boss like a good blaster could in a single shot.

Frankly the class needs to be re-evaluated, it was a cool idea of the suddenly appearing AT attacking a mob and killing it for maximum shock amount. While in the beginning they could take down a Boss, that one real benefit of the Stalker in a team was nurfed away.

IMO because the DPS of Stalkers is so low, and the burst damage is not that great, the Stalker has been reduced to a support class, well out of the league of the melee classes. If this class is going to be helped, it has to be given enough dps to take it out of the support class arena. Many of the solutions I seen here, are more along how do I make my weak damage AT less vulnerable or more survivable, when we should be discussing on how to make it more lethal in a pragmatic manner.

Sue

To be fair though Blasters should be out damaging Stalkers. Overall they are designed as being less survivable and the typical trade off is lower survivability= more damage.

So being out damaged by a Blaster doesn't bother me.
What does bother me is being out damaged by Scrappers.
As I see no reason why they should be more survivable and deal better damage then Stalkers.

I have a stalker that not only has trouble finding groups, but has trouble working effectively in groups.

I'm no number-cruncher, but here's my rough idea for fixing stalkers.

(1) Drop the Stalker base threat level
(2) For each member on the team, reduce the stalker's threat level, even to the point of doubling this effect for each Tanker or Brute on the team.
(3) For each member on the team, reduce the (ridiculously long) time for Hide to re-activate after an attack.

Here's the "rationale": with more team members, enemies have more targets to evaluate and attack, and the Stalker's abilities mean said Stalker will fall out of notice with respect to other, more visible targets. That means the Stalker can run around and strike with relative impunity in the context of a large team.

No need to futz with DPS or even burst damage. The Stalker can hit, run toward the tank, brute, or scrapper, have Hide re-activate, and strike again.

Mmm...

The Stalker AT came with such a promise, it was the Ninja AT in the game after all, and we all adore anything Ninja. I really would like to see them evolved or corrected to be a prime time AT and not a "support" type AT, its just so wrong...

Stalkers need to be able to kill "Bosses" in one shot, that in itself is their major contribution to the team or group. Then they should have sufficient survivability to survive their initial attack, while the Tanker or other melee gains aggroe though taunt or any other means. After that, they need reasonably good dps to provide "bodyguard" ability to the "softies", assassinating any mean hearted mobs picking on the support such as rear echelon mezzers for instance, since the devs vey well know that support can't possibly defend from mez and use this exploit to the max, and thus with a Stalker disposing of this class of threat would be of invaluable benefit for the group over all, and also gain the love from the many Defenders who spend half the time in la la land from the spam mez.

Sue

so some fun facts about Stalkers and Agro.

Currently Stalkers Base threat is already low. I'm not sure about the exact numbers but they have either the lowest or close to the lowest base threat in the game. So making changes to Stalker threat won't do much as Stalker threat is already low.

Now we move on to mob agro. When a team attacks a mob, everyone on that team is added to the mobs agro list regardless of any factors currently effecting the player so phased,hidden, or at the door making a sandwhich you are now on the mobs target list.

How does the mob decide who to attack, that's where threat comes in. Every thing we do adds threat, the mob targets whoever has the highest threat on their list. So lets say a Tanker attack is worth 2 points of threat and a Stalker attack is worth .5 points. If both hit the mob once, it will prefer to target the Tanker. Taunt acts as a multiplier for threat.

so if our Tanker taunted that 2 points of threat actually becomes higher. Now I don't know how much taunt multiplies by but for this example we'll say 3. So our Tankers threat is 6 and our Stalker is still at .5.

So now our Tanker wanting to be a good tank starts attacking other mobs in the group to draw more agro. Our Stalker wanting to do his job of killing stuff nao continues attacking his initial target and eventually builds up a threat more than 6. Our mob now attacks the Stalker.

Seems pretty simple and straightforward until we get to the agro cap of 16. Mobs stop attacking a player when 16 other mobs are already attacking. So they go through their threat list until they find a target not being attacked by 16 other people.

So what about Placate? Placate removes the player from the valid targets list for 10 seconds or until new threat is generated. However it doesn't erase current threat so when new threat is added it gets added to the already existing threat.

Then we move on to ambushes. They're are two kinds of ambushes locational, and targeted. Locational works like a rally point, the ambush spawns and moves to it's predetermined location. Targeted ambushes spawn in agroed to their target,with an attack queued. Like when you chase a mob around a wall but never loose targeting on it. Since no threat has been assigned to anyone with a targeted ambush they go to whoever.

Hope that helps explain why you're Stalker randomly gets attacked and Why Castle said that Stalker Problems are Systemic in nature.

Oh as a counter anecdote to the Lambda and ITF experiences mentioned above, I was on a Tin Mage with my Stalker we were fighting Bobcat. The Tankers and Brutes had gone down as well as one of the Corruptors before she started to attack me. And I was happy to go Toe to Toe with her as she couldn't really hit me(love Divine Avalanche) so for a bit we were brawling then she ran off after the squishes that were still standing. Cause Stalkers are terrible at holding agro.

Stalker is a joke in trials. With large group like that, you rarely need to set up Assassin Strike and AS's damage isn't even that good.

It's tough to even scout for Acid or Grenade on your own because there are always mobs surrounding them and their tohit chance is so high that your soft-capped defense doesn't mean much.

In BAF, there's always so much lag during Prisoner Outbreak. Sure, you may get off one BU + AS on a running lieut but other ATs are aoe, immb and hit just as hard. Assassin Strike does not stand out during that phase at all.


So basically, the so-called toughest trials don't need Stalker's ability to Assassinate or Scout. I don't think Stalker is useless or a garbage but if Assassin Strike is meaningless during such large teams, then give me something back! The dev took away some precious AoE attacks in place of AS. But honestly, I want to keep Assassin Strike but it is just not a good attack at all. It takes too long to activate and the interruption is annoying. I am not talking about how "Wow!" Assassin Strike is when you are lvl 20.


The good news is Stalker is not the only AT having access to Judgment for aoe damage. Every AT can. :P

Ultimate Fix? Make Assassin Strike better in PvE.

I read somewhere that a mob will go after the lowest hp opponent when all things are equal. I can attest to this when playing my controller.