Stalker or Scrapper on your team?

[Placate]

If you don't think that's a meaningful advantage, I think you don't know how to leverage it. It's of little use on a team (and some people consider it a downright negative when used there), but I can tell you I damn well wish I could placate some things when I play my Scrappers, especially solo.

If I'm not mistaken, the context of this entire argument is in team play.

For what kind of content? What are my play goals? Am I speeding to the end of something? Are there a lot of glowies? An AV at the end? Do I have to defeat 300 foes? What powersets do the AIs I'm choosing between have?

If Dispari wants to clarify that the quoted statement meant that Stalkers "bring only cons when invited to a team", I'm willing to drop the sub-argument. Even in the original post's context, and in their subsequent response to me, that intended meaning is not at all explicitly clear to me.

"Scrapper or Stalker on your team" is not clear enough that the discussions in this thread are about who you're inviting to your team?

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

No, frankly, it's not. Seriously, do you have to ask me that, reading as many threads as I know you do here?

You made statements that contained no internal qualifications about teaming comparing the performance of Scrapper and Stalker. They did not read like they were talking about teaming, despite the context of the thread. I took them at face value as a complaint about the unconditional relative performance of the Stalker AT, and that you were using that as justification for not inviting them to a team, rather than that they were conditions that held specifically on a team.

In other words, there's a difference in: "Stalkers are always weaker than Scrappers, therefore I will not invite Stalkers to a team" and "Stalkers are less useful on a team than Scrappers, therefore I will not invite Stalkers to a team." I read your quoted post as the former.

Kind of content: All teaming content

Goals: To complete said content

Speeding: Maybe (hint: You don't need Stalkers to speedrun, in fact most teams don't use them, and there are plenty of more capable people at speeding and recalling; the average Brute or Tanker can just run through enemies without even needing stealth)

Glowies: Probably (hint: Stalkers are not especially competent at finding and clicking glowies, at least no moreso than other stealthers, since they suppress when clicking; in fact Widows are better at it since they have both stealth and smoke grenade; Stalkers would be less competent than the average stealthy Scrapper, VEAT, Controller, Brute, Tank or even a Dom who has invis for LotG mule since they'd be more likely to solo a spawn if necessary)

AV: Maybe (hint: Stalkers are not especially good at killing AVs; AVs are a DPS game and Stalkers are sub-par compared to other pure damage classes you could take such as Scrapper or Blaster; any other option such as VEAT, Brute, or Tanker would at least bring team buffs or ability to take significantly more damage and hold aggro)

300 foes: Probably (hint: Stalkers have less AoEs than anyone else, and regardless of content you're going to be spending 95% of your time fighting large swarms of things)

Powersets: All of them (hint: Stalkers are at a disadvantage in damage buffs and self-defense; the only set Stalkers get that's particularly great is Ninjitsu, but sets like Fire Armor, Shield Defense, and sets with alternatives to BU are more advantageous in a teaming environment)

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Hint: I know how to play the game, and rather well. I'm pretty sure I don't need your "hints" to help me understand anything relating to game mechanical differences in ATs, powers or powersets. I run with speed teams, stealth objectives all the time, participate in steamrolling of AVs on teams, and also solo AVs all with a variety of ATs. I am not laboring under any misunderstandings about what's possible.

Your argument comes down to "well, if I've got someone on the team who can do everything that any Stalker might bring to the team, why invite one?" And once again, we can ask that question of any character, especially characters who bring narrowly focused abilities. We've got a Cold, Rad and Kinetics... should we invite that FF/Psi Defender? We've got two Illusion Controllers and a Plant Dom... should we invite that Tanker?

I get that the narrow role specialization of the Stalker means that plugging in any other melee AT is probably going to bring conditionally comparable or probably simply greater damage capability (assuming comparable build powersets), and maybe more AoE (depending on what the other AT's version of the powerset offers - I don't think we should be offering a Dark Melee Scrapper many nods for greater AoE capailbity, even though it's technically true.) I get that the Stalker is more fragile thanks to its lower HP. I get that Placate isn't very teammate friendly.

I don't think that always unambiguously means I am going to prefer a Scrapper in every conceivable scenario. Is it a safe bet? Sure. I'm probably going to be happy with the Scrapper. If the Stalker's player is not what I think is an idiot, I doubt I'm going to be unhappy with the Stalker. Adding them to my team never makes my team worse than it was before adding them. It may not make my team as good as adding something else.

By the way, Stalkers are not at a disadvantage at self-defense. They are at a disadvantage in HP. (If that's what you meant, my apologies, but I don't consider HP "self defense".) Their direct copy mitigation powers share the same scales as Scrappers, except for cases where things were done to make room for Hide in their powers list, such as happened with Super Reflexes.

I cringe when I read stuff like this. Why? Not because I think it's wrong-headed. Because it's highlighting an old, pervasive imbalance in how good AoEs are in this game. I file stuff like this under "be careful what you wish for." One way the devs could deal with disparities in "efficiency" like this between AoE and Single-Target stuff is to bring the hammer down on how much more effective AoEs are in time and endurance. I'll be honest, I hope that never happens, because I love what we can do now, and thus I have some hope that it's so pervasive and baked in that the devs leave it alone. On the other hand, being imbalanced forever and a day hasn't kept them from addressing some other "broken" things.


I think I would start by asking if that's a trade-off we have to make? Given Stalker HP, and so many things they can bring to a team could be offered by something else, is letting them have an unconditional critical bonus out of whack?

(In terms of whether it's technically feasible, standard code rant applies, but the way the Defender damage buff unconditionally decays with team size seems to suggest it's possible.)

If the answer is "no, you can't have both"... I don't know. I guess it might be OK. The 33% works pretty well for me, because teams I run with tend to run around in a clump, especially around hard targets.

Somebody brought up that Defender's Vigilance works whenever there is party member (in the same zone only?). From coding stand point of view, isn't it easier this way than trying to check for how many party members within the radius? Someone told me that Stalker only gets 30 radius because the game could be lagging too much if the radius is larger.

I don't know if Stalker's damage is crazy high with 33% critical potential (some attacks have no critical damage anyway) so that's why I suggest a trade-off for something around 25% but at least the buff is always there (as long as the teammates are in the same zone).

I do not think it is a meaningful advantage. The AoE placate, maybe, but that is only one set. Perhaps my opinion of placate is tainted by the fact that my only high level stalker is regen and the fact that I normally played on Unyeilding (and now I play at +1 x3). Placate + high defense may be more interesting, I have gotten much better use out of it while teamed with defense buffers.

Is it handy? Sure. Is it a meaningful advantage over what scrappers get instead of Placate? I do not think so. It is one power that has a modestly nice effect. I never said stalkers had no good powers and I would not agree if someone did say that. But it is not a meaningful advantage over scrappers. It is defensive/offensive power stalkers get that scrappers do not get.

Well, you'd have to be under the delusion that Scrappers are filling some role that teams want. I'm pretty sure, whatever role Scrappers fill, Stalkers are in the same boat. They have about as much opportunity with differing flavors. So it's not "nobody needs any role in the first place" but "whatever role you're filling with either is fluff so you have to be overly compensating to even be concerned with fluff".

I'm of this opinion as well. People hark over the AoE advantage, which I'll admit is there, but honestly and truly, it's just bowing at the feet of exploitable enemy AI. AoE is definitely more efficient at taking out multiple foes, but it comes with venomizing so much else in the game. AoE controls, knockback, intangibility, sleeps, hell even single target damage itself.

At this point, I don't really care how balanced it is since if given the same or nearly he AoEs the other melees get, Stalker can outburst them all (so it's only a manner of *getting* them) but I still hope for AI and enemy types that try to counter this cheap tactic. Foes that fly, foes that kite, foes that teleport you around, foes that don't cluster, they're all situations where AoE are only a passing occurrence and *surprise surprise* make DPS less optimal over putting out high damage in fewer attacks.

And the problem with those types of add-ons to the game? Those clinging to their AoE Brutes, min/maxed DPS Scrappers and entitled Tankers will whine because they aren't the stars.

Well, someone's gotta be the background singers every now and again, you know?

Dream on. This won't ever happen.

Someone will always be sub optimum and then excluded, no matter how small the measure is. Just human nature.

Eh... yes and no. The extra stealth over everyone except Illusion Controllers really only matters if there are snipers or turrets, but can show up at times, and Placate helps if there's a spawn close. It's not completely foolproof, but given how you can play with LOS to click things already, only having one thing that's capable of spotting you is pretty common.

Of course, I've had better luck with AoE controls (my Mind/Energy Dom with Super Speed and a stealth IO is great for clicking whatever glowie I want), or just running the Darrin Wade arc and holding onto Midnight Visage to click glowies while standing in the middle of a spawn without aggroing anything. And if I really, really don't trust not being hit, I can just hit Self Destruct while I'm close on anyone.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

What won't ever happen?

That the game won't ever try to balance out the situational advantages of some tactics?

Or that stars that have their spotlight won't willingly share it without a fight?

I never dreamed the latter will ever happen in-game or reality and the former is pretty much too-little-too-late.

Snipers are only 149ft for perception and Turrets (along with GMs) are 100ft - Stalkers are at 150ft (at level 36; dunno if that's the cap for Hide, just what my MA/Nin is at) and thus completely invisible to anything that doesn't outright ignore stealth. Might be situations where a Sniper or a Turret gets a perception boost that lets them see the Stalker or Illusion Controller (200ft) prior to entering combat with its spawn (or aggroing it in a nearby spawn while fighting), but I've yet to encounter them.

The "role" I'm talking about is ST damage and burst damage specialist, which isn't a role that teams seek out or need, ever. The game just isn't designed that way, and even if you have an AoE heavy team, everybody still has enough ST damage to do anything that needs doing. Scrappers fill a general damage role, along with Blasters and others (heck I consider Doms a damage slot when I'm filling up teams) -- that includes both ST as well as having other benefits, without making huge sacrifices to be good at ST, unlike Stalkers.

There are various roles that people look for. None of them is necessary for any one task (barring some debatable and rare situations), but all of them are useful and can flesh out a team's capabilities. When people look for people to fill slots, they usually look for A) damage dealers, B) support (buffs/debuffs/mez), and C) tanking. They aren't looking for "Burst damage specialist."

When I look for a damage class I go Scrapper, Blaster, Brute, maybe Doms. I'll also look for VEATs and Corrs as they double as damage and support. I don't look for Stalkers because I know that they don't have as many AoEs, don't do as much damage as a Scrapper unless the entire team is huddled closely around them, and are easier to kill than a Scrapper. The fact that they do do good burst damage is unnecessary and irrelevant to a team, so there's no reason to take them over a Scrapper.

Granted, most teams don't need to be min/maxed and frankly most teams of 4 could handle spawns for 8 so it doesn't matter if one person or even half the team is sub-par. So if there's a Stalker looking and I'm feeling lazy, or a friend has a Stalker, then yes I'd be glad to take them. But there's never a time when I pull up the search window and look for a Stalker. They simply don't do anything a team would ever need or want. At least not with the sacrifices they make to be good at something totally pointless to a team. As the question of the thread is "Stalker or Scrapper?" the answer is always Scrapper.

I'm sure UberGuy could make some convincing arguments or them being excellent at soloing. I solo my Stalker because I hate getting hit by AoEs on teams and losing my ability to AS or crit, which makes me feel useless -- so I just solo. I have no interest in arguing a Stalker's solo performance though. They could be the best ones in the game at it. But for me, their performance on a team is nothing a Scrapper couldn't do better. Any supposed advantages or expertise they bring are unnecessary or not worth the downsides.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

No no no, Dispari. You can't make generalized statements like that. No, it doesn't matter how often it's spouted on the forums, that doesn't make it any more all-encompassing. When you have to put a list of asterisks by a sentence just to make it true kind of defeats the purpose.

Stalker's aren't solely ST damage specialists, not when you actually look at the sets case by case. It's Martial Arts, Dark Melee and Energy Melee that are single target focused and that goes for *every AT*. And even having a specialty for ST bursts doesn't mean that's all they have to offer.

Sets like Katana, Broadsword and Claws may have diminished AoE but they can provide it for the team. Sets like Dual Blades, Spines and Electric Melee can provide great if not the same AoE damage as their AT counterparts and it's arguable that Kinetic Melee has *better* AoE on a Stalker. Bring epics into the mix and there's just too many 'excepts' to rely on the statement.

That said, outside of fringe cases, Scrappers aren't fulfilling 'general damage role' anymore than a Stalker because 'general' is pretty all-encompassing. It includes burst damage, DPS and AoE. Will your MA scrapper be dishing out the AoE? Or your Claws/Dual Blades the burst?

For a general damage dealing role, that is Blaster. Anyone else is, in a min/max perspective, filler. That includes Scrapper.

That is just not true. It just isn't.

Every Stalker primary has more AoE in the other AT's that contain those sets, with the exception of KM, since repulsing torrent isn't that great--but in the case of Scrappers, they have a higher base damage mod. Coupled with the fact that Power Siphon offers more of a total +dmg buff when stacked than its BU counterpart, proper usage means you'll get more out of it on a Scrapper than a Stalker.

Dark Melee actually gets 2 PBAoE powers in other sets which, coupled with Shadow Maul, allows it comparable AoE if they're used. Katana and BS get one PBAoE.

Martial Arts, with the recent changes, can now chain Eagle's Claw > Dragon's Tail and have very respectable AoE damage with the increased crit chance.

And this is, of course, without taking into account the fact that other Melee AT's get sets like Shield Defense (+dmg toggle, huge AoE), Fire Armor ( Burn, Fiery Embrace ), along with PBAoE toggles (Dark, Elec, Stone).

I'm not sure how you can ignore all of that and act like there isn't a huge gap between a Stalker's AoE potential and that of a Brute or Scrapper.

Incorrect. You're overlooking one critical factor here: Damage modifier. Even if stalker sets had the same number of AoE powers (like in elec and kin melee), they are still sub par due to the difference in damage modifier.

You can say they traded their AoE powers for the single target damage of AS and on demand critical hits. What did they trade their survivability for? What did they trade their damage modifier for?

Was getting AS and placate worth losing AoE potential, damage potential, and survivability? I think not.

You mean like, say, 90% of the AV fights in the game that a team will be involved in?


In a situation where everyone is within 30' and the fight lasts longer than a few seconds, like a lot of the newer content seems to include, a stalker will almost definitely do more DPS than a scrapper.

The possibility of landing a critical hit on 1 out of 3 attacks will increase damage significantly. For enemies like, say, Trapdoor, who have a game mechanic that rewards the ability to apply a large amount of burst damage in a short amount of time, a stalker will come in handy. I fully expect there to be enemies in future content that ability will be useful against.

If I know I will be fighting a particularly tough AV, I might be inclined to invite a stalker over a scrapper for exactly that reason.

I still haven't seen a scrapper that can kill a boss as fast as a comparably built stalker either. Build Up+AS+Placate+heavy hitter does a lot of damage in a relatively short amount of time, and I have killed bosses using that chain before they had a chance to react to my presence quite frequently.

A stalker makes an excellent duo partner for a controller for that reason alone. Controllers have little to fear from LTs and minions, but a mezzing boss can ruin their day in a hurry. If you have someone with you that can eliminate that threat immediately it gets a lot easier on you. Not all controllers are Fire/Kins, and not all controllers have equal ability to deal with bosses.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

No, I mean like 90% of the team play. I don't assume you spend 90% of the time fighting AVs in this game, do you? I know I don't.

If you feel like your stalker only serves a purpose in AV fight where everyone "cuddles" together, be my guest. That's not my idea of Stalker.

From everything I've seen you post on the subject, it really seems to me that you want a Stalker to be nothing more than a Scrapper that can be sneaky and set up a critical on demand.

If that's the case, what is the point of them being different at all?

Hell, let's just get rid of Stalkers completely and give Scrappers the ability to set up guaranteed criticals.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

This is where the problem lies though.

Stalkers can do more damage than a Scrapper, but only by a little.

Scrapper: 1.125 * 1.1 = 1.24*
Stalker: 1.00 * 1.31 = 1.31

* = For the sake of argument, Scrappers have 10% crit rate on anything that actually matters. Especially since the argument is mostly based around AVs. Doesn't really matter about minions, and even if it does, well, AoEs take those out and Scrappers have those.

Okay, so a Stalker is doing more than the Scrapper. By a measley 5-6%. Only when the entire team is huddled very close. The average Blaster, Corruptor, heck even Doms, half the VEATs, Khelds, Defenders, Controllers, Masterminds -- basically a ton of people aren't always going to be within spitting distance of the Stalker. Sure those times will happen, maybe if everyone is clever enough to huddle around the AV for Fulcrum Shift or whatever, but those times will be rare. Teams are dynamic, people want to leverage their range advantage or use cones, maybe even split up a little at times. If even one person wanders off to the side, the damage diff is only 3%. If two people are out of the way, Stalker is doing less.

But here's the deal, even if you meet that rare circumstance, the Stalker still has: A) less AoE, B) less self-defense. So he's going to underperform in all the group mob settings (which are 95% of the content generally, this AV scenario being the tiny minority) even if you have all 7 people squeezed in near him. And he'll die easier than the Scrapper would.

Is a mere 5% damage advantage, in not-guaranteed circumstances, in a minority of the game's content worth having less AoE and less survival?

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.