Stalker AoE

So... Stalkers should be mezzers/debuffers?

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

But it still doesn't work as intended, either because the fear doesn't apply as often or the -tohit is too modest. In a mob of 6 to 8 you still have to play hit an run once you've dropped out of hide and aggroed them.

Exactly, that it relies on you NOT ONE HIT KILLING SOMETHING. When you consider that Stalkers are supposed to be assassin types, this doesn't seem right, that one of your best tricks relies on your target surviving your Sunday best and bread and butter opening attack.
Besides, wouldn't it be MORE demoralizing to see someone DIE from such an attack then just be badly wounded but still apparently alive enough to fight with no performance difference? (Aside from a ToHit Debuff and possibly being subject to fear)

Now another problem is that Stalkers tend to occupy a bit of an odd niche. They're melee damage dealers who deal less damage than a scrapper, can only make as much use of build up as a tank or brute, has armor values tied with scrapper (which are actually the second worse modifiers only to blasters), and is tied with blasters for HP. Their niche is burst damage that requires specific circumstances to use, and the circumstance is easily broken, and they tend to suffer from loss of AoEs (with Electrical melee being the exception) and some other powers (like quick recovery), resulting in further lowered survivability and a weakened attack chain in the name of being able to perform in this niche...

It's not an easy hole to dig Stalkers out of...

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

hmmm..

In that respect, perhaps something like *bleep* *Bleep* *Bleep*: *bleep*-hood's kill streak system could be used...

Basically, the current system in city of feels like it practically punishes a stalker for one-shot-ing a foe in the middle of as crowd.
but what if there was a way to detect something being defeated by a formal Assassin's strike from full HP, resulting in a large damage buff to the stalker as well as guaranteed criticals for a small time frame, only renewable either by starting the process over with a new assassin's strike from hide and build up, or by taking down another opponent in this state.

Coding would be a nightmare, but it could theoretically gives Stalkers a way to deal with mobs.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Sure, there are tactics for dealing with large mobs, but itmakes no sense to have to pace yourself for fear of being overwhelmed.

Just making a statement; you're probably right about demoralize but it's not that the fear doesn't always apply or the amount of -ToHit. It's a 25% chance to fear any normal mobs (so just not EBs, AVs or GMs) which isn't bad. And the -ToHit is 7%. That's pretty decent considering it *cannot* be resisted. Even by the higher mobs, it's a knock to their hit chance.

However, I do have issue with the duration. It's only 8 seconds right when the blow lands. It's fine to dampen an alpha strike (any Stalker worth their salt should at least have some self mitigation to take advantage of this bonus) but could last a bit longer like 12-15sec.

The only reason you'd play hit and run, even if the mob is large, is if there are multiple problem mobs (mainly those debuffing ghosts, pain in the **** illusionists, etc.) or you simply haven't enough self mitigation. If you choose to ignore your secondary the I guess you deserve to need to hit and run.

In demoralize's defense, most Stalkers go after the bosses and in the high levels, you won't be one-shotting bosses so it's no more a choice between killing the target or getting demoralize and more a choice to go after what has the most HP.

That said, I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth if we got demoralize reguardless.

Granted. But I find much of the superiority people claim for Scrappers is just on paper. In most occasions, I can kill just as fast solo and survive better on teams as a Stalker because people look at the little DoT the damage auras do but don't bother calculating the mob would have died in the same amount of attacks regardless. It's just damage points on a spreadsheet and deemed worth the aggro and the danger.

Set your difficulty right then. You can remove or add bosses, increase/decrease mob level, etc. You can set your pace in many ways and if you get overwhelmed then lower mob size. You can even increase difficulty so Lts can survive a BU/AS while having fewer foes to deal with.

As far as Stalker AoE, more options are always good. It'd be hard to complain about AoE if we had sets like War Mace, Super Strength, Fire Armor and a Shield Defense variant. Even with some of the PBAoEs missing (Whaah, I don't get Whirling Hands/Mace/Axe...what a quandary...) it's still easy to pull off BU+AoE crits to make up for them.

I have to disagree on this point, in that a lot of the difference isn't on paper, but is the result of actual experience. I have a variety of of Scrappers and Stalkers, and without fail the Scrappers do better damage faster and have less trouble surviving than the Stalkers do. Just about everything is easier on a Scrapper of comparable powersets, even with tactics and assassination taken into account. A Stalker has to work much harder and even then just to break even. At least that's how it is in my experience.

The problem I have with Stalkers - as you well know - is that their stats suffer to make up for their assassination gimmick, but their assassination gimmick is so designed that it's just about pointless to use more than once per fight. You can, but it's badly inefficient. And a lot of their best attacks don't even have a guaranteed hidden critical. Golden Dragonfly, Head Splitter and Eviscerate don't, and Thunder Strike only guarantees a physical critical, which is around 60% of the power's total damage, or about as much as Havoc Punch.

Stalkers are weaker than their counterparts in terms of raw stats because their gimmick is supposed to make up the difference, but in my experience, it really doesn't. Not in a hard, long fight.

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.

Clarify: I said kill just as fast solo (I'd like to imagine Typhoon Edge dragging DB Scrappers a meaningful distance ahead of a DB Stalker even on paper, but in actual play stuff is just *dead* already) and survive better on teams. It's *very* easy to survive with the same mitigation numbers as scrappers when you've got Brutes and Scrappers soaking up the attention while I just kill things.

Again, I say much of the superiority is on paper because in all those paper calculations, no one ever counts all that extra aggro they draw that stalkers don't, or placate or using burst do end fights fast. It's just never put to numbers yet it *DOES* make a difference.

I didn't say Scrappers didn't have any factors better than Stalkers, but it ain't as big a deal as people claim. And Stalkers get that other 'gimmick' as well.

Perhaps, for some set combinations and in the situation of you being in a pissing match with the other damage dealers. Personally, I never understood why it was needed to show you're the 'biggest' on a team (even those Scrappers and Brutes) rather than just going with the flow and do your thing. That Scraps get equal to above better numbers is just fine considering they can't *do* anything but hit things so let them do that the best. I like that Stalkers have a bit of a wider scope in what they can do and can mix up their battles a lot more. It would be interesting for Stalkers to get a few more 'tricks' or advances on the tricks they can do rather than just a straight boost to performance (which is boring).

IIRC, I read a DPS rundown of an optimized Scrapper MA attack chain and an optimized Stalker MA attack chain that included AS when placate was up. Basically, thanks to AS, the stalker kept up with the scrapper at first primarily due to the bursts of AS damage but eventually fell behind. Without AS, just by definition of AT mods, the Stalker would *always* be behind without AS. So I don't think it's badly inefficient, it's just not going to surpass Scrappers over time. As it should be, IMO.

PS: Eviscerate *does* crit 100% because it is a single target attack for Stalkers. But honestly, why not be happy you get 50% crits on AoEs? That's 5x more effective than what a Scrapper's crit rate is! Even better since you can time these crits with a damage/ToHit buff. Then there's the small chance of double crits.

Stalkers aren't built for long fights. They are better at short quick fights. Fights that require movement or getting in and out. If I remember correctly, there's some instances in the game where you don't want to stand there and push buttons as fast as you can...you can do some interesting things if you take advantage of burst damage.

And they don't. That's the thing. I haven't run DPS calculations, I haven't taken up a stopwatch, I haven't taken a tape measure to it. I know what I see in real practice - a Scrapper cleans house, a Stalker takes time. Yes, solo. Yes, for the same spawn sizes. A Stalker will kill ONE thing fast, but then what? This is what it comes down to - you assassinate, "and then what?" Stalkers have no answer to this question, because what happens then is they turn into a weaker version of a Scrapper. That's weaker offensively and weaker defensively.

When you're solo, you draw all the aggro regardless of what you play. Stalkers CAN Placate enemies and thus avoid their aggro, but the Placate is very short-duration and you cannot enhance it for that.

And I never said anything of the sort, either. I want parity between my own characters. When I look at a server full of heroes and villains and my mouse goes to one of my Stalkers, I don't want my first reaction to be "Oof... He's not strong enough. I'll play him another time." Stalkers do not feel strong enough. Not nearly as strong as they should be, all told.

And if their AT gimmick were built so that you could actually use it more than once per period of calm, I'd agree with you. If there were better ways to hide mid-combat, better ways to avoid aggro, better ways to control and influence enemies, then hell yeah I'd put up with their lacking performance. But they don't. The entire design of Hide and hidden criticals ensures that you HAVE to play like a gimped Scrapper, or end up sucking even worse. You CAN hide mid-combat by dodging around a corner and waiting 8 seconds, but the critical gained is not worth the wait, and you're usually interrupted anyway. You CAN placate, but not nearly often enough. And if you're not using a defence-based set, then you're very SOL.

I'm not saying Stalkers need to be stronger and be more like Scrappers. Quite the opposite, they need to be able to rely on Hide more and score criticals more often and under more circumstances. I really liked the "Hide on kill" idea from the other thread, just as an example.

So it would seem. But that still leaves Ninja Blade, Broadsword and Electrical Melee without decent critical attacks, essentially forcing them into being Scrappers.

Furthermore, 50% critical chance on AoEs is not five times more effective than a Scrapper's 5% critical change, because that assumes you're in Hide, which is so designed to NOT last you for any length in combat. A Scrapper can easily fire off five AoEs before a Stalker is able to re-hide, and by that point he's done more raw damage than the critical could ever have counted for.

And again - this is not a problem with wanting more AoE criticals. On the contrary, I want guaranteed single-target criticals on what should be large-scale single-target attacks, but which are designed as something else. When I placate with an Electric Stalker, what do I hit with? Thunder Strike will only deal as much critical damage as Havoc Punch, Jacob's Ladder will probably miss and I don't think Lightning Rod even scores Hidden criticals, but even if it does they'll be at a chance to occur. I could use Chain Induction, but that power's initial hit is only marginally stronger than Havoc Punch anyway. When I'm playing Ninja Blade, I want to Placate a boss and surprise him with Golden Dragonfly's heavy damage and big critical, but it won't happen because the critical will miss, so I'm forced to use the significantly less damaging Soaring Dragon.

Stalkers are built around single-target burst damage delivered from hide, yet they are not given the tools to deliver that aside from Assassin's Strike, and that REALLY bothers me.

"Stalkers aren't built for long fights." So what do I do when I'm forced into long fights? Mercedes Sheldon's trio of arcs puts me in numerous situations where multiple ambushes come in the middle of a boss fight. In fact, a Stalker with enough burst damage can trigger all three ambushes at the same time. The final fight with Hector is even better. Hector is a boss, he spawns two ambushes with bosses in them at 75% and 50% health, and he spawns Menelaus at 25% health, who then spawns three more boss ambushes at 75%, 50% and 25% health. If you're fast enough on the trigger, you can spawn up to six boss spawns on top of you right around simultaneously, and if you try to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed, you're in for a long fight.

And what about ever other mission in Praetoria? Those like to throw massive ambushes at you as a matter of course. How about the Ghoul mission with Dr. Steffard, where no less than 20 Ghoul ambushes descend upon you, several at a time towards the end? What about that Syndicate mission which spawns endless ambushes for its entire duration? One of Vincent Ross' new missions has continuous waves of Coralax ambushes, and I counted at least 10 before they stopped, with no time to rest and targeted on ME. What about when fighting your average elite boss, where running away simply lets the elite boss regenerate while you're gone? Or how about the final fight in the Roy Cooling Arc which has you fighting Castillo, then Castillo, then Castillo and then an elite boss Zeus Class Titan?

You can't avoid long fights in this game. Not when they're written into the content. So when your AT "isn't built for long fights," it suffers, and suffers greatly.

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.

LOL!

So you've run a DB Stalker and a DB Scrapper? Or a Martial Arts Scrapper and a MA Stalker? Or an Elec Melee Scrapper and an Elec Melee Stalker?

You say one takes time while the other cleans house which shows obvious bias. What does this say about my Stalkers that clean house? Or my Scrappers that take time? Because there is such a thing as a Stalker with AoEs and a Scrapper without much of it.

And what happens after you assassinate? You've got choices:
-Placate and take out another.
-Scrap the rest and placate the last
-Placate and AoE

The other stuff usually differs from combo to combo, but the Stalker's alpha string can usually end with 3 dead foes quickly (or a mass of dead foes if the stalker has 2 or more AoEs) leaving the rest for clean up. That you can't see anything more than Stalkers being subjectively weaker scrappers shows you ignore the other stuff whole-sale. Stalkers either have that other stuff included and are not the same or they are.


It lasts for up to 20 seconds. Longer if you simply aren't around when it wears off. That is, you can engage a group of enemies, placate one, kill another or two then retreat (with a couple foes in tow) and leave that target there indefinitely while you destroy the rest.

It's just as, if not more, potent control than any other damage AT can get. It can allow you to ignore a boss (or even an EB but EBs and AVs tend to act weird with Placate) entirely and engage them separately if you so desire.


Not enough what? Honestly, how much have you narrowed the min/max guidlines for your characters that you know exactly how much of something you need?

But eh, you play differently than me. I just play what I feel like playing, not what a particular team needs. If I want to do a TF/SF, I take the one that either hasn't done it or needs to do it so it doesn't matter if it's a ST focused blaster, an AoE brute, a balanced stalker or a super defensive scrapper.


You and all the others that want to lean on AS more like a crutch. What I've been seeing in a lot of posts is that posters confuse the things that they *want* and how they think the AT is suppose to be, with how everybody should play and what they should want the AT to be, as if that's what we need.

Well, many players do things a lot different so what I may want may not line up with what others want. That's cool, it's nice to imagine. Just make sure that you don't mask it as what we 'need'.

I'd love it if we had several inherent toggles that altered the way Hide, Placate, AS and crits worked, giving us a less-defensive-but-offensive-crit-Juggernaut mode and a less-dmg-but-debuffing-demoralizing-crits mode. But hey, I'm pretty sure it won't happen not to mention it'd be really complicated for newer players.


NB/BS = Use Disembowel/Soaring Dragon. It does decent damage, is fast animating and will crit 100%
Elec Melee = Use Chain Induction. Not that good a ST attack because it is also an AoE and it is fast. You can't expect much because the set is full of AoE.


Use placate then AoE.

That is, you've got 2 choices: Open with an AoE from hide or Follow-up AoE with the help of placate...if you happen to have 2 AoEs, you can just burst both AoEs possibly even adding BU (or save BU for AS when you need it next fight).

Actually, Havoc Punch and Chain Induction do identical damage but one has a 1sec activation + AoE dmg and the other has a 1.5sec activation.

As for NB, how about lining up 2 or more targets for that Placate crit? There's some serious advantage to playing solo, like practicing those narrow cones. I've about perfected it on my Kat/SR scrapper.

I'd consider 50% crit rate being 'build around burst damage', not specifically single target. When the AT gets Fire Melee, this will be more obvious since players tend to notice AoEs more than ST.

You've got several options:
-You can do like I do and load up on reds and straight out kill the target with AS. (If you've got the AoE and/or the mitigation I'd do this)
-If you find you triggered one too many ambushes, you can placate the target and run. Not run for your life, but rather run to separate the ambush and defeat them.
-If you manage to trigger one ambush at a time, you can take one target out of the fight for extended periods (if slotted, placate recharges in 30 sec and lasts 20 so that's like 2/3 of the fight x foe isn't doing anything to you) and take opportunistic strikes to clear the ambush then move back to the boss.

Here's a question, if faced with the same situation on a scrapper, what would you do? And if you say scrap it out because you can I'm going to laugh in your face because I can do the exact same thing on a stalker. The difference being, if you're faced with an ambush that you cannot survive, Scrappers have few options besides banging their head against it until it breaks. Running for the hills kind of doesn't make a difference as they'll have to come back to finish the job anyway.

I went through the Resistance arcs 1st with a Stalker without stamina. Praetoria is too easy for a Stalker with his ability to stealth damn near entire arcs. A few ambushes only gives you a reason to use all those inspirations you managed to collect after killing the 'too small spawns' so easily.

The AT suffers only in that using AS is not as universally useful...That's. It.

But it can be a bit harsh considering what you trade for that AS is a decent PBAoE or a utility power that can keep you going. However, that just means it changes the dynamic of what you build for. Those other utility powers that Scraps/Brutes wouldn't bother looking at could be used in different ways in conjunction with your abilities. Or the AoEs that are over looked or occasional used can fill in any gaps you feel you have.

To conclude my ramblings, I'm of the view point of a Stalker fan but then I'm also a damage fan. Not in a min/max form (because then I'd be apparently running controllers) but in a general form. Stalkers are a dmg dealing AT and so are Scrappers and Blasters. They all have to have relatively close perfomance otherwise you take away a reason to play one over another. So each gives up something to keep balance. IMO, Stalkers don't really give up much...some AoE and being FotM apparently. They still kill plenty fast, have tactics to call their battles and mix it up and survive decently well in general cases. There's really not much else besides some tweeks to be expected in the future.

An AoE Placate would really do the trick.

My Claws/Ninjitsu Stalker says hello

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I have to agree. I can understand that some players have an experience where a Stalker does not kill foes solo as fast as a Scrapper. But in my experience, my MA Stalker goes through individual spawns faster than my MA Scrapper. My Scrapper may catch up in going through the whole mission, I'd say that's about the same, but there's just something to be said for knowing that my first two attacks are going to drop two foes. My Scrapper just can't say that.

And I don't see the feeling of vulnerability or being overwhelmed, either. Yes, I am aware that I have 10% less time to finish off my foes, but it's never felt like as much of an immediate threat as before, when the HP was lower. (and the damage) I'm cautious with my Scrapper, as well, he's not a Tanker, and the Inv Scrapper that I do have set up as a tank seems to be more risky and "seat of the pants" than either of them.

It's just a matter of using Placate and Criticals well, and being secure enough in the AT to get in there and scrap. Of course if you believe that you can't do that, you're probably going to find that you can't. The Stalker is an AT that leaves little room for error, which is why it's so important to be aware of your environment. But when it works, it works well.

Now that's a phrase I haven't heard in a while...maybe it just fell out of fashion.

I'm speaking of the 'little room for error' part. It was something used a lot to describe Blasters back before the defiance change. From my experience though, Blasters still have little room for error; you screw up and you could be dead.

I think Blasters and Stalkers do have that in common...the little room for error part, that is. The difference being, rather than ending up dead if you screw up, you can just find you're in the pits dmg wise. Screwing up on a Stalker doesn't really result in death unless you're just being stupid, which means you probably need to revisit 'Blaster 101: Targeting, Jousting and all around Not-Being-Dead'. When you screw up somehow on a Stalker, it usually just means you wasted placate, wasted AS, wasted time and wasted endurance...but you can still fight because at least you're alive.

As for their selling point for teams, I suppose they still have issues there since 'A stalker ='ing a less aggressive and less AoE scrapper but is far less likely to die unless they don't know what they're doing' probably isn't a hugely useful trait in the general sense. Or 'A stalker ='ing a less damaging, melee-limited Blaster that is much easier to solo' isn't either.