Stalker To Hit nerfed?

I think there may be a problem here, I've been noticing an inordinate amount of misses on my level 50 Energy/Dark stalker.

Today I went 0 for 8 AS's on Maelstrom (As a level 52 boss) in the "Destroy the bomb triggers" alignment mission. I was using both "build-up" and "Call to Justice" to no effect. I've gone as high as 14 misses on him in this mission. It is very repeatable, sometimes I only miss 3 or 4 times, sometimes 14. I did get a screenshot showing the combat log, but I don't know how to post it here. The only thing I've noticed has any effect is multiple medium yellow or large yellow inspirations, but sometimes even that doesn't help. Didn't have any yellows today.

And I don't even want to talk about what happens if I don't AS Silent Blade in the morality mission, because it isn't pretty if she gets her defenses up. I have had multiple 5 minute "Miss fests" with her.

MY stalker isn't purpled out yet. But AS has 4 Hectacombs (Dam/Rec, Dam/Rech/ACC, Rech/Acc, and Dam), 1 accuracy IO and 1 Damage IO in it). Build-up is three slotted with Guassian's (To-hit, To-Hit/end red, and To-hit/ Recharge). I have never used MIDs, but if it will help and I can figure out how to post an image, I'll print my enhancement screen as well.

Another thing I've noticed is that if AS hits, the next attack seems to have less than a 50% chance of a hit. I've gotten to the point that I follow up with punch rather than waste Energy Transfer or Total Focus on a something that will likely be a miss.

I just plain seem to be getting a lot of misses with everything lately. It isn't just on tip missions either, its pretty much everything. With miss ratios like this, PvP is completely out of the question, luckily I don't PvP much.


I was soloing today. But on a team, by the time I get an AS hit on a boss, the rest of the team will have cleared that room and the next 4 rooms as well.

This doesn't seem to be working as intended. Is this normal or has something been changed?


Edit for clarification:

I didn't mean to imply that I had BU available for every AS, it only recharges in time for one in three Assassin's Strikes. Always the first, then the fourth, etc.

OP its in your head. Don't bother testing it.

Well, it may well be a POV problem, no arguement there. Thats why I asked in the forum.

And I understand missing is a part of the game and all, but this is the only charactor I really see the effect on because AS is the "Bread and Butter" shot for a stalker. Especially one that has only single target attacks.

It does have an up side, however, as I have plenty of time to get a soda, bio or whatever while I wait for things to recharge.

you can check your tohit rolls in combat logs. Do some testing then copy/paste the text here if you cant get a screenie uploaded.

I've been convinced for a long time that there are some circumstances in the game where the random number generator is either not called on to generate a new number, or it malfunctions.

I do understand at least to some extent that "random is random" and have some idea how to test this as I'm a final year statistics student IRL.

My experiences include:

a lowbie where my best attack is the veteran sands of mu, so I use it whenever it's up, and it missed 34 times in a row against opponents with no serious amount of defence while the other attacks hit normally.

an afternoon where I went round the streakbreaker sequence of 3 misses/1 hit 6+ times in a row twice in successive missions when I suspect shouldn't do it twice in a lifetime (odds around 1 in 200 billion each time as my to-hit was in the mid to high 70s).

An occasion combining enhancements where I got 24 straight successes then 4 straight failures with success chances of 75/80/85%.

An occasion where I did a mission before you stopped getting high level TOs, and I got 8 TO/DOs, all end mods (which are pretty rare) of varying types and origins.

Random merit rolls, you seem to get the same recipe twice in a row more often than you'd expect. When somebody did the stats on the rarity project, it appears that this did happen more often than you'd expect, but not ridiculously so.

If you feel Stalker to-hit has been nerfed, then the easiest way to check that is to monitor either your Last Hit Chance in Combat Attributes, or otherwise devote a tab entirely to to-hit messages and look at that one. I'm sure you'll find that in a lot of those instances, your actual final to-hit is at the 95% cap, but you're just rolling all 96s and 97s, or as is my case, 99.97 and that one perfect 100.00.

Quote:

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.

Yes Zem, I am being sarcastic. (: P)

I do believe something isn't right, I think I'm missing more with that stalker than the numbers say I should. But other than a couple of really odd instances, I don't have any "Smoking gun" type evidence at the moment. I can provide screen shots to show it happened, but then again it may really have been a string of bad luck.

Since no one else seems to be noticing it. All I can do is keep monitoring it.

But it bugs me that I can do that same mission with a scrapper, at the same settings, and mop the room with Maelstrom. Occasionally, I get a few misses with my scrapper, but never any long strings like that.

Thanks for your responses.

Like I said - monitor your to-hit values and if you notice a dip there, then we can investigate the causes.

Quote:

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.

They have not been nerfed, however that is not to say that they are where they ought to be at...

I always feel like I miss way more often playing sets like EM or KM with horrendously broken animation times. Every time I miss a total focus I die a little inside. It's heartbreaking to jump up in the air, hover there for like an hour, come back down and *whiff!*

I always feel that I am missing way more often on those sets over other sets. I really hate the 95% tohit cap in general though. You should be able to accuracy up to 100%.

This is because both Maelstrom and Silent Blade have +Defense-based defenses, and some pretty fierce ones at that. People always claim ToHit has been nerfed for <fill in the blank>, and have been claiming that from release, but usually it's a matter of misunderstanding the ToHit equation in the first place.

You have a base 75% chance to hit even-level foes, and that drops precipitously as your foes get higher level. Against a 52, you've got a 56% chance to hit.

Stalker Build-Up adds +20% ToHit Buff, bringing that back up to 76%. Fully slotted (even with SOs--ED limits this), Stalker Build-Up will add 31.2% ToHit Buff (it's Schedule B, like +Defense). That brings your chance to hit back up to 87.2%. Call to Justice adds +10% ToHit Buff, unslottable. That would bring your chance to hit back up to 97.2%, though it caps at 95%.

Your foe's +Defense is going to be subtracted from 97.2% before the entire amount is multiplied by Accuracy (which is going to be ~2.0 with your slotting).

The real question is what is Maelstrom's +Defense, particularly the 52 version (not the 15-22 version found in Praetoria). If his +Defense is somewhere in the vicinity of +92.2%, he's going to floor your ToHit back to 5%. Multiplied by 2.0(ish) for Accuracy, that's just a 10% chance to hit him. He's a Going Rogue signature character, so it's not implausible for him to have a crazy-high +Defense on his Stealth, much like Captain Mako does.

Have to admit you are right about the defence on Maelstrom today. I got a little lesson today and figured out what was happening. It seems that the game mechanics and, possibly, a little mission bug were playing with me.

While playing with a scrapper, I was beating him down and knocked him over a railing, suddenly he disappeared. I ran over to where he was and he reappeared, so I started trying to hit him and . . . nothing. Then I noticed he wasn't fighting either. Having learned a little from the above posts, I checked my To-hit stat and found it was almost zero! He has some sort of defensive power, maybe phase shift, I'm not sure. And I didn't notice any activation emote when he turns it on.

Then the pieces all came together. This is what I think happens:

At the start, I approach him on my stalker with hide on. I click through his dialog boxes and then he gives me his little " you gave away intel . . ." speech and turns hostile. But I'm still in hide mode and remain hidden, and he doesn't aggro on me (possible bug?). But, like the Carnie Illusionists and master Illusionists who activate their intangability power when I get close, apparently he activates this power when I first get near him even though he is unaware of me at that point. That stalker is near the perception cap, so I don't see any visible difference in him. He is not aware of me, so I don't see him stop fighting to clue me in either. AS misses don't cause aggro, so I sit there wiffing with AS until this defensive power wears off.

If I'm right, I hope the devs don't laugh themselves silly!

I tried to test my theory this morning, but as I got to the point where I would AS Maelstrom, one of the sappers suddenly turned around and shot me. So perhaps that bug(?) has been fixed.

I may have been shot down this instance, but I still will stubbornly cling to the belief that I miss way more than I should on my stalker!!

With Silent Blade she hits her Kuji-in Retsu, which gives her high defenses a bonus of 45% for two minutes... Just wait her out, unfortunately she doesn't crash like she is supposed to, but that's the dev's way of saying, we know it is a bad mechanic and will fix it for toons, but not players. Maelstrom has Phase shift which lasts 30s. Unfortunately I do not believe that you can phase shift to attack him...

I'm not sure Maelstrom has Phase Shift. I've never seen him manifest that. It's possible, but then you'd get an "UNTOUCHABLE" message over his head when you try to hit him, just like the message over Carnie Illusionists and Master Illusionists when they phase out. I've never seen that message over Maelstrom.

The fact that you're seeing a ToHit number in the first place means it's not a Phase power. With Phase powers, you simply cannot hit. There's no roll involved. You're just denied from the get-go.

Rather, I think it's just incredibly high +Defense. This is not out of line, either. Advanced Rikti Drones have +35% Defense, and that's without triggering any special powers.

Beelzy, don't confuse player powers with NPC powers. Silent Blade's Kuji-in Retsu may be on a completely different scale from player Stalkers' Kuji-in Retsu; in fact, it probably is. Looking at the -Defense Debuff values of Defender Radiation Blasts (-25% Defense Debuff for half of the powers, -37.5% for another half, and -50% for Atomic Blast), I'm guessing NPC +Defense may be quite high in some cases. -25% Defense Debuff would take most PCs--even many +Defense-oriented Tankers--to 0%. I suspect NPC +Defense values are different from PC +Defense values.

Valence, tactically, I'd AS the Sapper, Placate Maelstrom, and take out the other Malta guy in that spawn down the hall. Then come back and try again against Maelstrom.

He kicked my butt on my Fire/Fire/Fire Scrapper, and a similar "bug" manifested after I was defeated. I used Rise of the Phoenix to rez myself, and he didn't aggro on me. He was still targetable, so he was still hostile. I may have been outside his aggro/perception range on death, though.

yep there is something weird witht he stalker build up lately....

I can confirm after using it i do tend to miss alot....

Alot more then if i dont use it.

And its noticable to me becasue i use not only that but the special hero power and i use a toggle from my epic set to increase my accuracy more......and was even thinking baout getting the pool power tactics to make my accuracy even higher due to how many times a i missed.

But i then noticed my to hit only went down when i used build up....i suspect that like some other abilities it might be sharing a vairiable with another aspect of the game and hte two variables are getting mixed...ergo the to hit is not constant as the buff is happening.

To Understand what i am refering to....pull up your combat stats....if you have issues like that...you wills ee the window constantly change....you might also see a random red number......the window should never be fluctuating like that...a power that is always on is not going to turn off or reverse for no reason.

I hope people send in bug reports....becasue i have...and the more they get the more they escelate problems to look into.

I will say this, if you are mixing Veteran Attacks in your attack chain, or have your attacks inconsistently slotted, this can effect the streakbreaker code. The streakbreaker uses the worse to hit chance over your last several attacks to determine how many misses it will allow you to have in a row. So it's possible, though likely also due in part to bad luck, that bad slotting on your Assassin Strike or some other attack is making the next attack after you AS miss so much.

This should not be happening, though. Your next attack after an Assassin Strike has exactly the same chance to hit as every other attack, 75%, plus whatever Accuracy you have slotted. You are probably seeing the combination AS-miss because it calls attention to itself, and you had a run of bad rolls. Now you're coming to expect the miss and noticing when it happens. So it's likely perception.

As others in the thread have said, HeroStats is a good way to confirm everything's working normally, and if there is a pattern that reveals an issue, like an attack with low Accuracy, you can fix it.