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Yes, I also think Assassin Strike costs a bit too much end especially if it gets interrupted somehow. I have had plenty of times where my AS was interrupted when I wasn't attacked. Maybe I clicked it too fast when my toon was "sliding" or got pushed by teammates. Each AS costs 14.4 end?|
Originally Posted by BrandX
Another thought, is to just rework AS's Damage and END cost! Same recharge as it has now. But Increase it's Damage a bit, and lower it's END cost a bit, because it gets annoying to pay for that attack and then no AS actually goes off. Right there, a simple tweak, increasing Stalkers ST DPS, while allowing them to more likely take out bigger targets with one hit. I still don't see the lack of AOE as a factor. Scrappers & Brutes have access to ST heavy sets. The interrupt reducer in AS would also be nice imo. Even at softcapped defenses, I've had AOE's during AV fights stop me from landing a placate + AS plenty of times. :/ |
Snipe also has interruption but you normally don't need to adjust your position due to long-range. Adjusting position takes time and may cause interruption.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Honestly, I have no idea how much Reichsman has health, other than "lots", "way too damn much" and "10 AVs worth".|
Originally Posted by milks
Reichsman has about 200k HP and huge resists. I'm not sure if you're being hyperbolic or are just clueless. Or both. Either way you sound really angry about it. If AS did 10% life to him before resists were factored in, it'd hit for about 1K. It's a lot of damage but probably fair considering that the Stalker probably did about 10-20% of the total damage on regular minion packs than a AoE specced Brute did.
Besides there is little difference between bringing an AT to a fight that can debuff a Hero so monumentally that anyone can tank it and it practically takes double damage, vs. bringing an AT that can bring tons of damage. End result is the same. |
If AS did 10% life to him before resists, it'd still deal 20k damage. In one hit.
Also, you'd need to AS a minion ten times to kill it. No thank you.
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
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At 45% defense, Ive had problems getting off on targets. |
Originally Posted by ultraok
Definitely agreeing with Leo on this
I also don't understand how people can feel like the redheaded stepchild to scrappers and brutes Stalkers, the way I see/play them are the mirror to blasters and brutes to scrappers Yes, there are some problems, but I think first and foremost the placate mechanic needs to be looked at Next, I would want something done about how resistance sets don't perform like defense- sure the new fix suppressing toggles is nice but you should be able to get another AS off mid battle... open with AS and then scrap (or flee)? c'mon stalkers aren't supposed to play like scrappers Even caltrops just ruins it for me-I can't placate and execute something running from me in fear? Other than those two, any suggestion slightly above marginal is going straight into the wastebin that sits under the suggestion box |
Something nudges you, poof gone...and now you do little bity damage.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Hmmm...been awhile since I ran a scrapper up against one.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Not that doing that really matters...
A better metric is 'how fast' or 'in how many hits' does it take anyone to do the same. If a Scrapper, Brute or Blaster aren't destroying a -10 Fake Nemesis in 2 sec or in 1-3 shots, I wouldn't really be expecting Stalker to either. But you want to know a viable and reasonable request to improve the AT? Proliferation. Because it seems all the complaining about AoE damage or sub-par 'scrapping' is coming from the perspective of min/maxed characters. That their Elec/Nin Stalker can't out-do a FM/SD Brute or a Spines/Fire Scrapper. Well, considering you're comparing a utility/mitigation mix set vs a pure offense mix, it's to be expected in some situations... You want more offensive/AoE focused Stalkers? Ask for offensive/AoE focused sets. Ask for Fire Melee, ask for Fiery Embrace and Super Strength. There's a reason I'm always interested in new and impressive sets for Stalkers, for a revised version of Shield Defense and an aggressive version of Ice melee or discussing possible new sets that might work for the AT rather than squeezed in. Because those sets would *really* leverage the position Stalkers are in. You couldn't complain about AoE if you've got Elec, Fire, Ice, Spines and Dual Blades, or lower damage when you've got Fire Armor and a version Shields that meshes with the AT. |
However, I'd say it's more than 2 seconds.
BU + AS + 1 attack = about 5-6 seconds.
But eh, like I said I make do with my Stalker
The no one shotting of a -10 just made me feel 
It also matter to me, because I was hunting Fake Nemesis. I agree with you, onb if they want more AOE they should ask for the new sets. HOWEVER, I think if ported to Scrappers they'd lose a lot of their AOE.
Fire Melee would lose either Fire Breath or FSC. Fire Armor would lose Blazing Aura.
I already said what I want in a Stalker Secondary in another thread (WP is pretty close to it). But then, I'm not worried about having massive amounts of AOE.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
All of this said...I think I see the problem.
Basically anything they do to make people say, "Yeah. Lets grab that stalker." will have people saying "OMG what?!"
Up the DMG mod, so they're actually better at damage, PvP will go to the stalkers.
Up Build Up +damage, PvP will go to the stalkers.
Tag on any noticeable amount of -Regen to AS, PvP OMGness and people going, oh sure, the stalkers can all solo AVs and GMs now.
I know many people go lolPvP, but it's a group of people who play the game.
And really any change is likely to just create more headaches.
Look at the Brute change. Nevermind that for most Brute players it was a buff. Nevermind, that even the Brute players who werent even coming close to top end Brute play, moan about the change, because while they weren't that good, it means they cant have that higher benchmark.
Tack on a bit more health, and it'll become OMG stalkers are even harder to kill now in PvP.
Could wait for i20 though. All the complaints about lack of AOE. Maybe that second incarnate slot that's some sort of AOE power will just turn out to be extremely awesome on a Stalker.
I know people have come up with other solutions, but I think a lot of these suggestions have possible PvP effects.
Totally agree, and don't see why they AS doesn't have the ability to slot interrupt reducers. My only guess is because of PvP really. :/
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Reichsman has about 200,000 HP and 90% resists to everything but psi and toxic. AS completely unbuffed and without and debuffs with an (arbitrary for this discussion) 10% unmodified to his life bar would hit for 2000.|
Originally Posted by SkarmoryThePG
Honestly, I have no idea how much Reichsman has health, other than "lots", "way too damn much" and "10 AVs worth".
If AS did 10% life to him before resists, it'd still deal 20k damage. In one hit. Also, you'd need to AS a minion ten times to kill it. No thank you. |
Naturally I'm talking about special rules for NPC's with extreme amounts of hit points and not minions, bosses, LTs or EBs. I already went over this. Stop dragging it out. In fact, just stop posting.
Any fix related to stalkers is all very much dependent on isolating what stalkers do.
I think the issue in comparing us to scrappers, brutes, or hell, even blasters is simply unfair to the stalker AT as a whole.
Lets face it, when you're playing solo, you don't PLAY a stalker like any of those ATs until you're slotted to the hilt with IOs because it's bloody impossible. Even after you've got your massive softcapped, or massive damage, or massive recharge, or whatever build you've dreamed up, that playstyle continues to assert itself.
Sure, I CAN play my Nin/Nin like a scrapper, but he's not a scrapper, and playing him like one impacts both my damage potential and survivability. I CAN play him like a stealthed blapper, but doing so still impacts both of those things. I CAN play him like a brute, but that confers the same problem as a scrapper.
The fact of the matter is that Stalkers are not scrappers, they are not brutes, and they are not blappers.
AoE Considerations are not a stalker consideration, they are a stalker powerset consideration.
Stalkers, no matter the powerset are built fundamentally around hide, AS, and Placate. No matter what sets you're using, you have, and use, all three of these powers.
Hide is not just stealth. The hidden state represents not only being unseen, but a state of calm on the part of the stalker that allows him to carefully plant a strike for best effect.
Placate is not just an aggro control. Placate is an avenue to create that state of calm for a brief moment in both the stalker and the target.
AS is not just damage. AS is the mastry of that state of calm, used to devastating effect on a single target.
What sets stalkers apart in terms of playstyle is the reliance on a state of calm in others and himself to defeat his enemies.
Any changed to stalkers should be approached in terms of "How can we alter stalker signature abilities to make them more useful in group play?" and more importantly "How can the hidden state be made more useful to the stalker's group?"
Stalkers are not defined by damage. Stalkers are defined by successful use of the Hidden state. The problem with this is that as soon as you're in a group, the Hidden state is immediately less useful because if you're getting hidden, you're not dealing consummate damage for the time spent, or you're using placate and placing others in danger for a tradeoff in damage that is of immediately less benefit to both the stalker and his group.
In this manner the current critical bonus for group members is actually antithetical to the stalker's role. It's a nice patch for the inability to fulfill that role. The implementation of the terrorize debuff was a step in the right direction. It rewards the stalker and his team for successfully employing his role. Even if the mobs don't stay terrorized, that tohit debuff is a rather nice tertiaty debuff.
Stalkers need a way to use their tools more efficiently and effectively in groups so that their experience in groups is closer to their experience solo.
I think the EA-stealth upgrade to hide is a good start. I also think (as I have previously stated) that cutting AS interrupt based on team size is a good idea, and possibly even re-hide time. I also laid out my reasoning for allowing placate to be used as a team buff in some way rather than its current use on teams which is more often than not effectively a debuff.
I don't think more damage, even if its a mastry of single target damage, is the answer for stalkers. I think more efficient use of the Hidden state on teams is the answer.
In light of the above post, here are a few ideas:
AS:
Leave it be. The next suggestion passively buffs it more efficiently for team usage anyway.
Hide:
Distraction bonus - For each team member, it takes the stalker one less second to passively re-hide by neither dealing nor taking damage.
Distraction (effect added to assassination inherant):
You are more lethal when your enemies are otherwise occupied.
For each team member, the stalker gains a 20% damage buff effect every two seconds while remaining hidden, stacking to a maximum of 140% this damage bonus is applied as bonus damage for any strike the stalker executes from a Hidden state. The larger your team, and the longer you remain hidden before striking, the more damage you will do to any enemy you ambush from hide.
Bonus points if stalkers get a bar for this to make it a readable as brute fury!
This means that stalkers that want to scrap will have identical performance to what they do now. However stalkers that choose to be more selective, or are tasked with quickly eliminating problem targets can adopt an extremely efficient hit and run playstyle without suffering a net damage loss on teams. In practical terms, this allows the stalker to do a combination of spikes and sustained DPS throughout the course of a fight as he sees fit by using increased critical chances from straight scrapping, guaranteed bonus damage from letting distraction build, or (more likely) a combination of both.
For AS alone, you're getting at least 80% more damage on a team of four because you're hidden for at least 9 seconds while activating the power. However, on a team you might not necessarily use the long-firing AS because your distraction bonus is letting you do nice alpha damage with your other attacks. Case in point, if my Nin?Nin decides he's going to just golden dragonfly assassinate people, and I can fire it every five seconds, I'm getting a crit plus 20% damage from one stack of distraction every activation, assuming I take no damage and make no other attacks between golden dragonfly strikes. This allows me to choose the pacing of my alphas, and know I have a reliable chance of re-hiding and oneshotting those minions or LTs if I choose to adopt a stalk-and-oneshot approach with an attack I know is beefy enough.
The upside is that no matter what the team is doing, I am pulling my weight. If a target I'm about to hit falls over, I remain hidden while I move to the next target, stacking more distraction. If I hit the target, I contributed damage and made it fall over. This makes me far more useful at killing LTs and bosses swiftly and efficiently, but gives me the option to scrap it out with minions and large mobs if I need to. Stalk and snipe will get me more overall DPS, but I can still do decent damage like I do now if I have to scrap.
For single hard targets like AVs, I'm doing my best of the team by ASing as appropriate and placating, dealing superior single target burst damage as long as I have someone else to keep its attention while I re-hide and build up more distraction. In the mean time I can placate adds off of squishies, or I can figure out a rotation that makes best DPS by timing out my scrapping with my AS recharge, rehide timing, AS casts, and distraction buildup. This means I need to fine tune my timing to get the absolute best DPS rather than repeat an attack chain over and over. So, carefully considered strikes rather than constant spam.
Placate:
For each team member, Placate grants a single use auto-placate fired from that team member to your target. This does not modify aggro, and will not grant your team members a hidden state. This means a placated target is unable to target the entire team.
To explain group placate and aggro, here's an example:
Full team, stalker placates a boss. Boss drops all targets (Because he's been placated by everyone) but retains aggro list. However, the boss is standing in the tanker's Fiery Aura, and is hit. Thus, the Tanker's placate fizzles, and the boss continues to aggro on the tanker as before the placate.
Example 2:
Same boss, but the boss is outside the radius of Fiery Aura, and is hit by a corruptor's AoE. The corruptor's placate drops, so the boss may attack him, however any attacker with aggro higher on the list that hits this boss (and thus drops their placate) will immediate get the Boss again.
Example 3:
Stalker calls "I am placating Boss" and placates the boss outside of AoE range. The boss sits there with its thumb up its *** until the stalker hits it with an AS. Because of the team's placates, it is unable to attempt to attack anyone else until the placates wear off, but is still being affected by the tank's aggro AoE. Thus, the stalker can happily take down the boss with impunity, draw it to the tank, or simply leave it sit there with its thumb up its *** with a second placate. This effectively allows the stalker to placate lock a problem target for the team as long as it is not being attacked in the same manner the stalker would placate lock a target for himself, but this mechanic does not prevent the tank from stacking aggro aura, or simply engaging the target directly to build up aggro while it is unable to attack the rest of the team.
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Agreed
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Originally Posted by Shadestorm
I don't think more damage, even if its a mastry of single target damage, is the answer for stalkers. I think more efficient use of the Hidden state on teams is the answer.
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I guess it would depend. If you're looking at Fire Armor, losing blazing aura, while it does add great amounts of sustained damage over the course of a mission, is honestly very crappy damage over the life-span of a target. How long do you engage a target on a Stalker anyway? Most likely, you're looking to bust through its HP very very fast, and thanks to Fiery Embrace, Build up and hidden critical/placate critical, that target will probably be dead far faster than the several tics it'd take for BA to be useful. Not to mention, it will interfere with placate because I don't believe that puts you in a real hidden state and therefore suppresses the aura resulting in you wasting your crit chance. In short, Burning Aura does more damage than anything else *if* you're adding up every tic it does over the course of a mission, not over a single engagement.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
I agree with you, onb if they want more AOE they should ask for the new sets. HOWEVER, I think if ported to Scrappers they'd lose a lot of their AOE.
Fire Melee would lose either Fire Breath or FSC. Fire Armor would lose Blazing Aura. I already said what I want in a Stalker Secondary in another thread (WP is pretty close to it). But then, I'm not worried about having massive amounts of AOE. |
For Fire Melee, there are 2 versions; Tanker and Brute/Scrapper. The Brute/Scrap version has 2 AoEs while the Tanker version has 3 (the extra being Combustion in exchange for the high ST attack Cremate). Honestly, I'd prefer a Stalker version that basically uses the Brute/Scrap version but removes Incinerate for AS instead. Yeah, it's the highest damage attack after GFS, but it's a pure DoT attack over around 5 seconds which works a bit counter to placate. The only other pure DoT attack Stalkers get is Barb Swipe which is more a weak DoT over 2 seconds with a chance of more toxic DoT for 2 seconds after...
Yeah, in short, Stalker Fire Melee = Scorch, Fire Sword, Cremate, Assassin's Blaze, Build Up, Placate, Breath of Fire, Fire Sword Circle, Greater Fire Sword. Keeps the AoE, gets rid of a high powered DoT attack for a higher powered burst attack, and makes sense for the AT's style. If Incinerate must be in the set, take the Tanker version and exchange Combustion for AS. Basically, we're choosing between Incinerate and Cremate.
Of course there's the other option of taking the Brute/Scrap version and replacing either FSC or BoF for AS, but I'm just saying there are other options to look at and is probably why we don't have the fire set now because it'd take more consideration than the easy ports we've gotten so far.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Basically anything they do to make people say, "Yeah. Lets grab that stalker." will have people saying "OMG what?!"
Up the DMG mod, so they're actually better at damage, PvP will go to the stalkers. Up Build Up +damage, PvP will go to the stalkers. Tag on any noticeable amount of -Regen to AS, PvP OMGness and people going, oh sure, the stalkers can all solo AVs and GMs now. |
Consider what competing ATs get:
Brutes = really powerful damage buff from Fury, taunting attacks
Scrappers = 5% crit on minions and 10% on everything else
Blasters = Able to attack while mezzed, small stacking damage buff on every attack, 2 powersets of attacks
That said, it's not like we don't get a lot...we do. And while some of those tools can be rough around the edges due to AI reasons, there's honestly nothing wrong with the AT if you really want to leverage its strengths. The main difference I see is the powers available to the AT. Honestly, if Stalkers had the exact same powers as Scrappers had, Scrappers would barely compete...
...now add on a slew of buffs to make Stalkers the ST kings and then Scrappers are left in the dust. Blasters, Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers and Doms are competing for the same role and I feel we already have the tools to compete with Stalkers. Just need the powers to apply those tools with and we'll be more than fine...
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Originally Posted by Shadestorm
Lets face it, when you're playing solo, you don't PLAY a stalker like any of those ATs until you're slotted to the hilt with IOs because it's bloody impossible. Even after you've got your massive softcapped, or massive damage, or massive recharge, or whatever build you've dreamed up, that playstyle continues to assert itself.
Sure, I CAN play my Nin/Nin like a scrapper, but he's not a scrapper, and playing him like one impacts both my damage potential and survivability. I CAN play him like a stealthed blapper, but doing so still impacts both of those things. I CAN play him like a brute, but that confers the same problem as a scrapper. |
While I'd *love* for Stalkers to have a hugely unique style of combat that relied on many tactics and skill (it actually does have more style and tactics than similar melee ATs which is why Stalkers will always have a place in my character lists), you have to keep it simple for the non-uber players. If a Scrapper is just a melee that runs in and fights in melee range, I would hardly say that's impossible for a Stalker or even a Blaster.
So, I'd love the AT to become more complex to facilitate more and unique tactics in battle, but it'd be like requesting a unique mechanic of making ranged combat for Blasters more complicated. There's no purpose and would only push away new players.
But perhaps I'm just confused at what 'playing like a Scrapper' means...
I've always maintained that most of the problems Stalkers face come from how the game system forces them to do things they're not designed for and how unwieldy their gimmick is to utilize. Brutes get extra damage for attacking and taking damage, which you're gonna' be doing a lot of even if you fall asleep at the keyboard mid-combat. Stalkers get a lot of Hidden criticals, and a LOT of damage from that direction... And yet the entire game conspires to destroy your chance to do utilize that.
Assassin's Strike is an easy target. It's a great attack... When it works. Unfortunately, leveraging Assassin's Strike hinges on both your hidden status and not being interrupted, as well as being able to actually REACH a static unaware target. Take a stroll around Cap Au Diable and the Goldbrickers will remind you why that isn't always the case.
To my mind, the central problem with Stalkers is that they are designed as Scrappers with critical damage, intended to do a few criticals and then scrap the rest of the encounter. I mean, yes, you CAN run away and sit on your hands for eight seconds, but then you lose far more sustained damage than that odd critical will get you, if you even get it. You can try to run away and assassinate, but you'll most likely be interrupted. You can try running WAY away until you lose all aggro, but that makes encounters so damn slow it's not even worth discussing as a spawn-to-spawn tactic. You want to keep Hiding and keep striking from Hide, but the game seems intentionally designed to trip you up in stupid ways. Even more stupid if your set doesn't provide you high levels of defence.
In my opinion, a true Stalker should fight like Sam Fisher as he does in Splinter Cell: Conviction. That is to say, get into a fight, disappear from view, circle around the enemy, strike, fight some more and disappear again. The game should ENCOURAGE Stalkers to keep disappearing, if necessary the entire time. It should not be build around preventing them from doing so. A Stalker shouldn't WANT to sit down and scrap because everything else is a waste of time and a crapshot, to boot.
Right now as I solo, I keep facing the same situation - I assassinate and one-shot one target, placate and one-shot another target, and now I'm left with three other targets shooting at me. What do I do? I could run and hide behind a crate, blindsiding one enemy who comes running around, likely not for full health, and THEN what? Run and hide again? Maybe if I had an hour to spare. Or, I can do what I usually do, and just scrap it out with the remaining few targets, precisely like a Scrapper would. If I had Smoke Flash, I would find it a lot easier to escape, re-hid and re-assassinate, but I don't, not on Super Reflexes.
But what to do?
The in-game AI isn't good enough to make line of sight matter, so that's out of the question. Making Stalker Hide suppress to only 35 or 50 feet (as opposed to 0 feet) would help the Stalker pick his fights more easily and possibly not engage entire spawns if that were the point. Shortening Assassin's Strike's interrupt window (or removing it) to make it more usable in combat or from "around the corner" ambushes would probably help, but people will probably cry foul. Shortening the Hide timer when you're out of line of sight of all enemies would be great, though it's probably impossible to do. I really don't know. As long as Placate is single-target, does it really hurt to have a shorter timer for it?
I don't want to PREVENT Stalkers from Scrapping, not at all. In fact, I have nothing against going through your attack chain once per "appearance." But what I want to encourage Stalkers to do is want to move and break line of sight. That's how these types of characters fight in the movies - take a few swings, dive out of sight and then hit 'em from behind while they're unloading their clips on your last known position.
*edit*
You know what bugs me the most? Stalkers feel like they're designed to thin the herd and pick off enemies one at a time, and YOU CAN'T! As soon as you assassinate, you become visible FROM SPACE. Everyone in the god damn room will see you and take pot shots at you, and even the people who may have otherwise been unaware will be hit with that fear effect and aggro on you anyway. And the best part is that you can't pull. If you attack to pull, you break hide and make assassinating almost impossible, but if you don't pull, then you have to assassinate from where people across the Atlantic will know you just murdered somebody.
I don't know what can be done about this. Not-fully-suppressing Hide seems like a good choice, but for pulling... Giving Stalkers a taunt is just a bad idea... Isn't it? I mean, I know Solid Snake had that "knock on the wall to make the guard come see and then break his neck" shtick, so maybe a taunt that doesn't break Hide? Or maybe some kind of summonable decoy that dies in one hit but taunts enemies to it when deployed? I don't know, it just needs... Something.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I agree with Sam, that stalkers should be rewarded for breaking line of sight. Im not sure what that reward should be. If it makes you untargettable to ST attacks immediately (meaning a targetted AoE attack could still get you) does that break the game?
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
In my opinion, Stalkers need to be buffed at the best thing they do: single target damage.
Much like the buffs to Fire Armor in i18, a set which is considered squishy but strong offenssively, the buffs further reinforced its offenssive status, making it much stronger than before.
Something similar needs to be done with Stalker, like buffing AS damage by at least 300% in PvE and 50% in PvP. It's sad when you can't even take a quarter health off a +2 boss with a well landed BU + AS.
Simply put, Stalkers need to be the indisputable single target damage kings, hands down. As it stands, a Fire/Shield Scrapper has both better survivability and better damage, being able to take down a Rikti Pylon in under 4mins by themselves. They also do massive AoE damage and look cooler, to boot.
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You do realize how useless relying on breaking line of sight is, right? At least for what you're wanting it to be. Using LoS to heard foes together for AoE carnage? Useful, certainly. Using LoS to just disappear for a crit on one target that will just as sooner alert the guys rushing to that same point?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I don't want to PREVENT Stalkers from Scrapping, not at all. In fact, I have nothing against going through your attack chain once per "appearance." But what I want to encourage Stalkers to do is want to move and break line of sight. That's how these types of characters fight in the movies - take a few swings, dive out of sight and then hit 'em from behind while they're unloading their clips on your last known position.
*edit* You know what bugs me the most? Stalkers feel like they're designed to thin the herd and pick off enemies one at a time, and YOU CAN'T! As soon as you assassinate, you become visible FROM SPACE. Everyone in the god damn room will see you and take pot shots at you, and even the people who may have otherwise been unaware will be hit with that fear effect and aggro on you anyway. And the best part is that you can't pull. If you attack to pull, you break hide and make assassinating almost impossible, but if you don't pull, then you have to assassinate from where people across the Atlantic will know you just murdered somebody. I don't know what can be done about this. Not-fully-suppressing Hide seems like a good choice, but for pulling... Giving Stalkers a taunt is just a bad idea... Isn't it? I mean, I know Solid Snake had that "knock on the wall to make the guard come see and then break his neck" shtick, so maybe a taunt that doesn't break Hide? Or maybe some kind of summonable decoy that dies in one hit but taunts enemies to it when deployed? I don't know, it just needs... Something. |
It'd be different if this was Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell, but this isn't those games, it's City of Heroes. You'd have to completely alter the dynamics of the game in a way that AoE isn't as attractive as it is in favor of ambush tactics. I severely doubt the devs would be dumb enough to do that. It'd basically amount to upgrading all foes to big bags of HP that would need headshots to take out, spreading them out so they aren't huddled waiting to be nuked yet patrolling for loud intruders, and making them deadly enough to decimate players if you tried hearding them en mass.
As is, pushing Stalkers into such tactics to get whatever benefit you feel they lack is just putting the whole AT up as laughing stocks for the rest of the player base to shun moreso than they already do. It's not a smart decision. Oh, it would be great if the right changes (see, changes to the 'system' so that aggro, enemy AI and the general tactical direction of battles) were made in favor of ambushes...for Stalkers...but that won't happen.
I'd suggest putting that vision of Tom Clancy's Stalker to bed and visit the drawing board again. Not that it's a bad vision, just not viable in this game...And there are plenty of other possible 'visions' of what a Stalker could be capable of too.
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Roughly, yes. Playing like a scrapper is a lot like playing like a brute. You run forward and beat on stuff. Think back the the beginning of a stalker's career, or where you were prior to SO range. You did a LOT of AS, and a LOT of defensive placating no matter your set. A scrapper at that level plays pretty much the same as he plays IO'd out at 50. He's still running forward and beating the crap out of stuff.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
What is 'playing like a scrapper' anyway? Running in and hitting things in melee range?
While I'd *love* for Stalkers to have a hugely unique style of combat that relied on many tactics and skill (it actually does have more style and tactics than similar melee ATs which is why Stalkers will always have a place in my character lists), you have to keep it simple for the non-uber players. If a Scrapper is just a melee that runs in and fights in melee range, I would hardly say that's impossible for a Stalker or even a Blaster. So, I'd love the AT to become more complex to facilitate more and unique tactics in battle, but it'd be like requesting a unique mechanic of making ranged combat for Blasters more complicated. There's no purpose and would only push away new players. But perhaps I'm just confused at what 'playing like a Scrapper' means... |
My proposals weren't really centered on making stalkers more complicated. They were centered on making stalkers more useful in teams. Lets face it, as soloists, stalkers in general are fine. Sure some powersets might need tweaks, but the AT as a whole in in pretty good shape.
What I was trying to do with distraction and group placate was to provide stalkers with a more solid group role in a passive fashion. Everything in those proposed ideas doesn't necessarily change the way a new stalker plays, but just like any AT, learning what to do when and where for your team is the trick. A newbie tank versus a seasoned tank, or a controller, or any other AT develops a sort of AT-specific zen over time. You get in tune with the mechanics of your class and how your play can differ on teams.
With those proposals, even a newbie stalker is already seeing a benefit on teams, while a seasoned stalker has the power to leverage his unique tools in the same way a seasoned tank who fully understands taunts, bruising, and punchvoke becomes a much more desirable team player.
It's not about changing the way stalkers play. It's about letting stalkers play on groups the same way they do solo. If you're a scrappier stalker, you can do that and still be a big help to the team. If you're a more controls or hit and run style stalker, you can STILL benefit the team, playing exactly the same way you do solo.
Simply put, this makes teamed stalkers as unique an AT as they are solo. Your stalker isn't going to out-scrap a scrapper, out-tank a tank, or out-brute a brute. Brutes are built to get aggro and use it for smash power, scrappers are built to continually and sustainably beat the hell out of things, aggro or no aggro. Tanks are built to take punishment.
Stalkers shouldn't out-scrap scrappers. Stalkers SHOULD out-stalk any other AT. Wheras brutes and scrappers see their best group play through sustained DPS while holding limited aggro, stalkers should be the guys running around one shotting things with big numbers intermittently. In a tough mob, stalkers should be the most efficient means of killing the biggest, nastiest thing there is and moving on to the next because their massive alpha potential is simply wasted on minions.
My proposals are centered around exactly that. They put the power in the hands of a teamed stalker to use the same tactical finesse he's used to using solo on a team they shorten hide, and make hide, and attacking from hide BETTER on teams. So much better in fact that people want stalkers on the team because they're the difference between fighting the entire mob, and then fighting the three bosses for a bit longer, and just fighting the entire mob because the stalker was dealing with the bosses.
They make the stalker want to team with people because.. hell, 3 second re-hide on a full team and a damage bonus that just gets better the more you don't attack? Who wouldn't want to just run around one shotting things in that situation? Why WOULD you scrap? Why would your TEAM ask you to scrap? You'd be the only guy that even had the option of absolutely killing anything you wanted to in a rapid fashion as long as you weren't killing everything at once. That doesn't mean you're unable to sit and scrap, just that you have the option to bid your time, strike from the shadows, and be absolutely awesome at it every time, even on teams.
You'd have the power to proactively protect your teammates by using placate to make mobs forget about your squishies, or breaking off your next big spike target, running over to the nasty that's wailing on your squishy friend, and killing it dead in seconds. Not nine seconds after AS finishes, but NOW, because you already had that setup in the form of hide and distraction damage ready to release. You use the attack you were going to hit the next boss with and hit the LT beating on your blaster in stead. See, now you have options, and you have the ability to be reactive in the same manner the rest of your team can react on the fly with the best their AT has to offer. Only for you, it wasn't deciding to hit a taunt or a mez, it was using the time between attacks to watch and plan for the next big attack rather than simply continuing to attack. You were STALKING the enemy mob rather than simply laying in to them, and because of this you are an expert at choosing exactly who dies and when, but not quite so good as a scrapper at simply making everything die all at once all the time.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
So, I'd love the AT to become more complex to facilitate more and unique tactics in battle, but it'd be like requesting a unique mechanic of making ranged combat for Blasters more complicated.
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Similarly, if the stalker doesn't bother researching the absolute best DPS based on distraction stacks, AS timing, and re-hiding versus scrapping the system will still work to benefit the stalker. He'll still re-hide faster between targets, and he'll still AS for more damage, and open out of hide for more damage while on teams.
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Yeah, I know. Line of sight doesn't play as much of a role as it should. I keep wondering about using some kind of easily-killable decoy to serve as a "last known position" that you can put around a corner for enemies to attack and let you run away...|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
I'd suggest putting that vision of Tom Clancy's Stalker to bed and visit the drawing board again. Not that it's a bad vision, just not viable in this game...And there are plenty of other possible 'visions' of what a Stalker could be capable of too.
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You know what the biggest problem is? Hiding, or rather re-hiding as a Stalker is not worth it. And it should be. You spend eight seconds sitting on your hands doing nothing, potentially getting interrupted and generally just wasting time. I could do the math, but I doubt even 8 + 4 for Hide + Assassinate is worth the time you could have otherwise spent just scrapping. That's the central problem of Stalkers as I see it - their gimmick is only ever actually usable once per fight, twice at most. You CAN use it more than that, but it becomes badly inefficient.
Now, I play my Stalker with a Dominator on a semi-frequent basis. What this means is that the bulk of the time, I don't have to worry about having my re-hide interrupted. Enemies are either confused, immobilized or outright held and unable to hit me. Even then, I feel like an idiot watching my character sitting on my hands while the Dominator - for whom damage is a secondary - outpace me in kill speed. And not because I suck as a fighter, far from it, but because I AM NOT FIGHTING. Any mechanic which encourages a person to not participate in a fight which is already happening I will always have problems with. And this is precisely what re-hiding is.
The cornerstone of my vision for Stalkers isn't line of sight, running away or other such gimmicks. It's basing Stalker fighting styles around hiding and re-hiding. As it stands right now, re-hiding is an aberration on the order of using Blaster snipes in the middle of a melee. You CAN... But it's really not the best thing to do. By FAR. And this, in my eyes, is what's wrong with them. Without a decent, controllable, reliable means of re-hiding, Stalkers cannot help but be reduced to slightly less impressive Scrappers, because they are reduced to Scrapping and nothing else. Yes, they get one big hit on an elite boss or an archvillan, which helps... For a while. But this returns me to my previous question: And then what?
Seriously, this is the question I think we need to answer. As a Stalker in battle, you assassinate... And then what?
Running away to hide around the corner is a cool idea... If it didn't take eight seconds anyway. Imagine fighting around a large container. Assassinate one enemy, run around a corner, critical-hit another as he comes around, run around the next corner, critical-hit again and keep moving. It doesn't take long, and it's an efficient way to fight. It takes the right terrain, however, and thinking on your feet. It's also impossible in the current system, but that's besides the point. Can't let Stalkers regain hide in two seconds, after all. That would be overpowered. Right?
Placate is a good idea, only the point of Placate is not to hide, but to cause one enemy to stop attacking you and, crucially, you can't do it from around a corner. Besides, it has, like, three seconds of animation or such, and it recharges in a minute. If it didn't require line of sight and recharged faster, I feel Stalkers would be a lot more fun to play, but again - might become broken in some people's eyes. Not in mine, but I'm usually a minority in everything.
Giving Stalkers some kind of single-target taunt might help, but one which didn't break Hide when you used it. If I can't hit and run in-combat, then at least let me separate spawns without giving up my one defining advantage.
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Let me sum up. I don't feel Stalkers need to be any better at Scrapping than they are now. They're good enough, just about. What I feel Stalkers need to be is better at hiding, since that's what defines them.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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It would be overpowered solo, sure... but as part of a group buff I think not. Part of my entire distraction mechanics writeup is focused around doing all of the above without the impossible LOS calculations. Effectively, you're using the presence of friendlies as your LOS break, they allow you to re-hide quicker, and you get a damage buff the longer you stay that way.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Can't let Stalkers regain hide in two seconds, after all. That would be overpowered. Right?
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Teammates do the mitigation job here in terms of aggro rather than a physical wall. Mechanically it accomplishes the same thing, only in stead of running away from the mobs, you're always running toward your next target.
This makes all of your attacks effective as alpha strike tools while still letting AS keep its place as your fight starting big hitter.
It's also important to remember that the game is supposedly balanced around 0/0 content, where a single spawn of enemies fpr a solo stalker is usually just three guys, maybe 4. Given those three guys, AS-Placate-scrap makes pretty quick work of spawns. Of course most of us don't actually PLAY at 0/0, but I remember playing through my 30s at 0/0 and my only problem was waiting for AS to recharge because the spawns were falling down too fast (and this was before the terrorize buff to AS.
I learned really early on that pulling was impossible (this was before origin powers, so on a nin/nin in the 30s it was literally impossible) but that my best friend TP foe could put things in my favor more often than not. To this day I still keep TP foe, and still use it from time to time to help clear adds off a tough EB or AV that I'm about to solo.
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Personally I scrap it out, placate and AS once AS is recharged from the alpha, and then scrap some more. I don't even wait for AS to recharge sometimes if my heavier attacks are ready to go. This is on teams and solo.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Seriously, this is the question I think we need to answer. As a Stalker in battle, you assassinate... And then what?
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I wish there was more to it but perhaps this is what we're supposed to be. Scrapper lite, even less Scrapper than Brutes. I guess it might appeal to some. I only play Stalkers for concept reasons.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
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Yeah, I meant to comment on that, but I think I got called off to screw in a hard drive or some such and it totally slipped my mind. I have no problem with this, since that's what team-mates do anyway. With a decent Brute or Dom, re-hiding isn't actually difficult, it just takes so long it's not worth it. Which, by the way, is my key problem here - when it's not worth for a Stalker to hide even when he could do so unmolested, something's seriously wrong.|
Originally Posted by Shadestorm
Teammates do the mitigation job here in terms of aggro rather than a physical wall. Mechanically it accomplishes the same thing, only in stead of running away from the mobs, you're always running toward your next target.
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Of course, I would love to see something done for solo play, as well, like the longer it has been since an Assassin's Strike, the faster you hide or some such. I'm just stabbing in the dark here, though.
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Originally Posted by Shadestorm
It's also important to remember that the game is supposedly balanced around 0/0 content, where a single spawn of enemies fpr a solo stalker is usually just three guys, maybe 4. Given those three guys, AS-Placate-scrap makes pretty quick work of spawns. Of course most of us don't actually PLAY at 0/0, but I remember playing through my 30s at 0/0 and my only problem was waiting for AS to recharge because the spawns were falling down too fast (and this was before the terrorize buff to AS.
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I keep thinking a faster-recharging Placate might help with that. But Placating one enemy out of a whole spawn doesn't really help pull off an Assassin's Strike, that's the big thing.
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Originally Posted by Shadestorm
I learned really early on that pulling was impossible (this was before origin powers, so on a nin/nin in the 30s it was literally impossible) but that my best friend TP foe could put things in my favor more often than not. To this day I still keep TP foe, and still use it from time to time to help clear adds off a tough EB or AV that I'm about to solo.
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On the flip side, what is there to do about it? I keep talking about a kind of single-target taunt... Call it "distraction"... Which would pull enemies without breaking hide, but it would still get you aggro and most likely prevent you from pulling off an Assassin's Strike. I keep wondering if there can't be some sort of decoy that would allow the Stalker to pull an enemy to a specific location without actually attaining aggro on himslef, but I don't know if pseudo-pets can work like that, and I KNOW the AI can't be made to do this.
What I keep picturing is... You know those ambushes that spawn on your location, but not necessarily on you? I like how I can sidestep the location, and they'll just go there and start looking around, allowing me to rip into them with full element of surprise. That's kind of what I'd like to have as a general tool, but it's probably impossible to do. Hmm... Or how about having some kind of decoy which would taunt enemies in a wide area to it without a line of sight check, but be easy to kill? Maybe for a new Stalker set or something? The Beret from Commandos, for instance, had that radio he could set down and turn on, causing enemies to cluster around it so he could knife them in the back.
Just... Something.
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Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
I wish there was more to it but perhaps this is what we're supposed to be. Scrapper lite, even less Scrapper than Brutes. I guess it might appeal to some. I only play Stalkers for concept reasons.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Right, stalkers aren't defined by damage, they're defined by hide. As for the distraction, one *could* argue that PPP pets could fill this niche, but are curently poorly designed to do so.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
On the flip side, what is there to do about it? I keep talking about a kind of single-target taunt... Call it "distraction"... Which would pull enemies without breaking hide, but it would still get you aggro and most likely prevent you from pulling off an Assassin's Strike. I keep wondering if there can't be some sort of decoy that would allow the Stalker to pull an enemy to a specific location without actually attaining aggro on himslef, but I don't know if pseudo-pets can work like that, and I KNOW the AI can't be made to do this.
<snip> That's kind of the problem, though - Stalkers are worse at scrapping than Scrappers are, both offensively and defensively, and they really don't compare to Brutes. If that's all they are, then Stalkers really ARE gimped. And, frankly, I wouldn't want Stalkers to be better at stand-and-fight tactics than the actual stand-and-fight fighters. That's why I feel they should get more perks with their hiding mechanic, not better combat stats. They fight well enough when they can leverage Hide. It's just that they can't leverage Hide all that often because they're simply not designed to. |
Adding MORE powers to existing sets is pretty universally a no-no, but seeing as each AT has different versions of the epic pools... how about altering the stalker epic pools to include just such a device. I'd envision it as a stationary pseudopet that works like the Crab OMEGA MANEUVER (Hands down one of the most fun powers in the game) only without the explosion and with a larger taunt radius. I don't think any other ATs would complain overly if the stalker sets just got a bonus power that was a stationary aggro pet that deals no damage.
Yeah... the official word at the beginning of this post makes me sad. In the many MMO's I've played coming here, the "stealthy rogue with huge damage" is always my first choice of charictor to play. In this game, however, the AT that seems to fit that roll the best is not the best option for my play style, nor does it seam, will it ever will be.
That said... the people who say stalkers can't get teams are over exagerating. In 6 years of playing in Pick-up teams, I can't say that I've ever seen a team exclude an AT. They may have looked for a specific AT, saving the last spot or 2 for someone who can fill that roll, but never have I seen anyone exclude an AT altogether.
I do tend to agree with the people who feel useless on a team. That happens in this game quite frequently.
I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.
I am leveling up my DB/EA stalker, and I feel very potent on teams. What I do find though, is that I don't have to rely on AS, but I am rewarded for using AS in a combo though (eg Sweep, Empower). I think dual blades is a well balanced, and designed smoothly for stalkers. Can't wait for One Thousand Cuts from Hide!
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Just to put things in perspective, in your early Stalker career, you did a lot of ASing because it is your most accurate attack, and it can outright *kill* bosses of your level range because their HP scale is still low. Honestly, it's probably a issue the devs would try to solve (1-shotting bosses early on) but they figure the results are dismissable (like the possible Double-Assassin's Strike we can pull off on rare occasions).|
Originally Posted by Shadestorm
Roughly, yes. Playing like a scrapper is a lot like playing like a brute. You run forward and beat on stuff. Think back the the beginning of a stalker's career, or where you were prior to SO range. You did a LOT of AS, and a LOT of defensive placating no matter your set. A scrapper at that level plays pretty much the same as he plays IO'd out at 50. He's still running forward and beating the crap out of stuff.
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But even then, in the early levels of my Stalker, I try not to use it as a crutch if only so once my AS doesn't 1-shot bosses, I'm not left feeling like a deer caught in headlights.
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| My proposals weren't really centered on making stalkers more complicated. |
I'm not putting down your idea (I enjoy reading new stuff so I guess I'll go back and read) but in the era of 'Stalkers need a change' a few issues back, I put for a lot of ideas (one being the inverse-fury mechanic similar to what you posted) and it was pointed out, most notably by Angry_Citizen, that they were just complicated kludge-work. It was annoying hearing that told to me but after playing the AT more, I've come to understand what he meant.
It's not that the AT would be worse off with some of what's suggested, but no other AT is that difficult to pick up and play with mixed and matched variables that could change suddenly...not even Masterminds.
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Well, then we're at an impasse. You say we should be re-hiding, and I say we should be fighting. If we're going to be relying on getting hidden again, it should result from fighting, not running or ducking for cover. No one else has to jump through such hoops for their inherent to work. Currently, we don't *need* to hide to get anything done and you're *rewarded* for jumping into the fray.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
You know what the biggest problem is? Hiding, or rather re-hiding as a Stalker is not worth it. And it should be.
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The devs gave us +crit chance for allies within 30ft radius. This tells me, they want us to fight, not hide.
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| You spend eight seconds sitting on your hands doing nothing, potentially getting interrupted and generally just wasting time. I could do the math, but I doubt even 8 + 4 for Hide + Assassinate is worth the time you could have otherwise spent just scrapping. |
Still, that's not optimal but it's got it's place, IMO. That's exactly what my EM/EA stalker and (to a lesser extent) my DM/WP stalkers do sometimes. He'll use stun on one target, ET > Bone Smasher on another (usually resulting in a stunned boss or something), hold for a few seconds, hit BU then queue up AS = dead boss, TF = dead Lt, another Bone Smasher and Stun, placate > AS.
Again, it's not optimal, but the enemies will usually stay demoralized, which is a boon for the team (and myself).
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| That's the central problem of Stalkers as I see it - their gimmick is only ever actually usable once per fight, twice at most. You CAN use it more than that, but it becomes badly inefficient. |
The only way burst damage or some gimmick aimed toward it would outpace min/maxed DPS is if the enemy was very durable for some portions of the fight (had their Shield up or something) and very vulnerable at specific times momentarily. It will always be more useful to stand up and fight fight fight unless you had a 'golden gun' attack which IMO, no one should have...and even then, you're better off trying to exploit it in an DPS chain.
That said, if we're trying to accomplish something else besides just killing things as quickly and efficiently as possible, then sure. For my EM/EA Stalker, his damage might not be efficient, but he's pumping out lots of mez and demoralize with his damage. He's not trying to be efficient for damage but efficient for something else...get where I'm going with that?
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| Now, I play my Stalker with a Dominator on a semi-frequent basis. What this means is that the bulk of the time, I don't have to worry about having my re-hide interrupted. Enemies are either confused, immobilized or outright held and unable to hit me. Even then, I feel like an idiot watching my character sitting on my hands while the Dominator - for whom damage is a secondary - outpace me in kill speed. And not because I suck as a fighter, far from it, but because I AM NOT FIGHTING. Any mechanic which encourages a person to not participate in a fight which is already happening I will always have problems with. And this is precisely what re-hiding is. |
Please stop pointing at Hide as the sole part of the AT. There's a lot more going on under the hood.
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The cornerstone of my vision for Stalkers isn't line of sight, running away or other such gimmicks. It's basing Stalker fighting styles around hiding and re-hiding. As it stands right now, re-hiding is an aberration on the order of using Blaster snipes in the middle of a melee. You CAN... But it's really not the best thing to do. By FAR. And this, in my eyes, is what's wrong with them. Without a decent, controllable, reliable means of re-hiding, Stalkers cannot help but be reduced to slightly less impressive Scrappers, because they are reduced to Scrapping and nothing else. Yes, they get one big hit on an elite boss or an archvillan, which helps... For a while. But this returns me to my previous question: And then what? Seriously, this is the question I think we need to answer. As a Stalker in battle, you assassinate... And then what? Running away to hide around the corner is a cool idea... If it didn't take eight seconds anyway. Imagine fighting around a large container. Assassinate one enemy, run around a corner, critical-hit another as he comes around, run around the next corner, critical-hit again and keep moving. It doesn't take long, and it's an efficient way to fight. It takes the right terrain, however, and thinking on your feet. It's also impossible in the current system, but that's besides the point. Can't let Stalkers regain hide in two seconds, after all. That would be overpowered. Right? Placate is a good idea, only the point of Placate is not to hide, but to cause one enemy to stop attacking you and, crucially, you can't do it from around a corner. Besides, it has, like, three seconds of animation or such, and it recharges in a minute. If it didn't require line of sight and recharged faster, I feel Stalkers would be a lot more fun to play, but again - might become broken in some people's eyes. Not in mine, but I'm usually a minority in everything. Giving Stalkers some kind of single-target taunt might help, but one which didn't break Hide when you used it. If I can't hit and run in-combat, then at least let me separate spawns without giving up my one defining advantage. --- Let me sum up. I don't feel Stalkers need to be any better at Scrapping than they are now. They're good enough, just about. What I feel Stalkers need to be is better at hiding, since that's what defines them. |
Kill a target = You're hidden again. I'd love it. Slap that in and ship it out. Solve the whole demoralize-not-procing issue too since, if you 1-shot something with AS, you're still hidden to strike again. The enemies would still know you're there but you can pop another shot off...possibly killing another to put you in hide again...
Next, I would want something done about how resistance sets don't perform like defense- sure the new fix suppressing toggles is nice but you should be able to get another AS off mid battle... open with AS and then scrap (or flee)? c'mon stalkers aren't supposed to play like scrappers
Even caltrops just ruins it for me-I can't placate and execute something running from me in fear?
Other than those two, any suggestion slightly above marginal is going straight into the wastebin that sits under the suggestion box
Each one has his/her own idea of "fixing" stalker but some people want to claim that fixing Stalker is a "non-sense" or "laughable matter". If it's a non-sense, Castle wouldn't say in i18 that Stalker still needs more work. And on the other hand, just because Castle thinks Stalker "is fine" doesn't make him "right" either because afterall, I dare say some of us play Stalkers more than he does. Sometimes "playing style" can't be justified by numbers and some calculations. If we feel something is not quite right, then something is not right (yes, Assassin Strike, I am looking at you).
I think Castle reposed here (other than being requested by EvilRyu) because he really doesn't have time to "fix" Stalker in i19. Castle has more things to worry about..like how balanced is each Alpha Slot "skill tree"? Time is the issue here.
The key thing is we can have a "peaceful" debate without yelling and attacking each other on personal level (like you are stupid, moron..etc). Most people can do it here and apparently some people can't. Just because some people say "I f!@#$ disagree" (with swear word) doesn't make that "disagreement" more legit. It just sounds annoying that's all and make me not want to read what he types.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.