Stalker or Scrapper on your team?

Regardless of solo comparison, we should be accounting for self damage buffs and pehaps even assault.

I'm sure at that point we'll see scrappers pull ahead unilaterally again.

It can be argued a Blaster doesn't do more damage than a Scrapper either, unless he is a Blapper. The difference is, the Blaster has an option to do way more AoE damage than the Stalker. So this is another point where the AoE issue comes up in a major way.

I personally feel the Demoralize effect is an attempt to address this, the Stalker does not deal AoE damage, but has an AoE debuff/control effect. But this wanders into cross-AT capabilities, and appears to be implemented in such a way that it is a situational power. (It is for use only against high HP foes that can survive the AS)

If we had some idea why that was implemented that way, and how some of the comparable Inherents are implemented, it might help. We can assume, for instance, that the Kheldian buff has such a large radius because it is tested for infrequently (relatively speaking) but the Stalker Critical chance must be calculated every single time a Stalker makes an attack. If we further assume the chance must be calculated while the player is waiting on his attack to hit, too large a radius might mean introducing long pauses in the Stalker's attack chain that would be unacceptable.

OTOH, that's a lot of assumptions. We don't know. Personally, if the Defender Vigilance is implemented in such a way that it doesn't require a "scan" for allies, but merely checks that such allies EXIST (in the team list, for instance) then I think I would prefer that. The Stalker would then merely require a team of four to match the single target damage of a Scrapper, whether his teammates were meleers or not.

As an alternative, I've suggested raising the chance of Critical more rapidly, but "cap" it at four allies, similar to how Vigilance works. Thus with one teammate in melee, the Stalker will Crit 15% of the time, with two allies, 20% of the time, and with three 25%, but with four or more it would be 30%, the current maximum. This seems more reasonable to me if you are trying to make the criteria that the Stalker has other allies in melee to "distract" his foes.

Neither suggestion would change the values of the Crit bonus or make the Stalker do more damage, he would just do more damage UNDER MORE CONDITIONS. Which seems to be what is needed here.

If you want Stalker-like play without the stigma of actually being a Stalker, go with a Bane Spider.

Oh, I don't play defenders enough to know how Vigilance works but it would be very nice if Stalker gets critical buff just for having teammates.

The cap at 4-allies is also nice because at least Stalker is getting that critical buffs more easily.

haha..speaking about Bane, he is my strongest "Stalker" right now. He brings good burst damage, great debuffs, team buffs and decent aoe damage. He has almost everything a Stalker would love.

I already have a huntsman. Didn't want to do the bane thing again (its what I played leveling up.)

The Fire/EA has been amazing though. The combat stealth is such an awesome feature.

Killing 1 group 10-15 Feet away from another is awesome.

Widows are a fabulous choice as well. They get great damage in addition to the DoT that adds more. They come equipped with great team buffs (Venge is always useful), ranged attacks, and even good utility and debuffs. With Smoke Grenade you can stealth and sneak around better than even a Stalker can.

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

I do agree unsuppressed Stealth in Energy aura is very neat. I have a DM/EA Brute called Stalkerish Brute on freedom. I made that build specifically to be like a Stalker.

One class vs. two assumes one is only talking about the balance of brutes and scrappers vs. stalkers.

Indeed, it isn't true anymore with the i18 update. Scrappers now do more damage at their cap:

Brute: 0.75 * 7.75 = 5.81
Scrapper: 1.125 * 5.00 * (even assuming minion critical rate) 1.05 = 5.91

I remember that, it was actually a response to something I asked in one of the betas. Castle was absolutely clueless as to what the stalker problem is on a team. No one has aggro issues. I can not even think of a time where I pulled aggro from anyone for any reason. Mobs do not target me if someone else aggroed first. So this what he stated is not an issue for 99.99999% of all the stalkers I am sure of. I just hope who ever is handling the powers issues actually plays the freaking AT so they can clearly see what the problems are. No one who players stalkers would have said what he said.

This idea is not going to work on aoe heavy teams. You would barely get any targets to hit before everything is dead. And the other ATs could just as easily taken out that boss. If stalkers could kill bosses as fast as say a blaster can kill minions with a nuke thats really the only way to balance it at this point.

Liberty is a medium size server at best. Try that on a server that has a real sizable population. You will get a "lol stalkers" so fast it will make your head spin.

Well with Khelds they have good reason to do this. They give absolutely nothing to the team unlike the VEATs. They do not do anything the other main ATs couldnt do better. To top it off you run the risk of team wipes from cysts if you dont spot them early. Call me a kheld hater if you want but that would be my last choice if putting a team together for anything. So at least stalker come before khelds.

Couple things here. Well after they jacked up fury with those awful fury changes we had brutes no longer always out damage scrappers. Second the hp difference is not so much that it adds alot of survivabilty that people are making it out to be. Now with outside buffs come in thats a different story altogether. But again if you buff the scrappers damage while you buff the brutes defenses you could then look at as a damage capped scrapper vs a resists cappped brute and see if its fair.

If I were to do stalkers, I would make the damage mod at least 1.3 and at the same time raise blaster melee and range mods to that point. Stalkers and Blasters would have 125% version of build up. Then I would revist the scaling AS thing we had on test server for a few weeks. I would make it so it worked without screwing over the damage against minions and LTs. Then we have a fixed AT. I would then move on to fixing all the horrid powersets in the game.

Thats like 1 hit like this every 45 seconds or so, thats no where near enough. Personally I would rather they get rid of the chance of crit from hide on aoes and make it work on all attacks regardless. Yes that means crit on energy transfer and concentrated strike.

Stalkers are some what easier to kill, thats kind of obvious on that one. Many powersets end up giving up crucial powers that would put them on par with scrappers. SR stalkers give up lucky which is scaling resists they need, the resists they get now will not save you. WP gives up Rttc for the self heal, but you would get more out of Rttc if you were in the thick of the group. I know the whole arguement back then when this set was in beta to not give it Rttc but since we have ways of suppressing toggles while hidden I seen no reason why it can be done now if they were to redo the set.

I would have to say the main thing that killed stalkers was making them give up aoes for AS. If AS could be inherrent and the aoes put back for the ones that need them it would be a totally different ball game right now on many of these sets.

The trick is, I think, a little at a time. Nerfing sucks, so a slow creep until you get to the point where you feel good about it is probably better than large damage buff leaps. Last time Blaster damage mod changed it only went up the same 12.5%.

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

But given how long it takes them to creep it up the server will be shut down before stalkers ever get up to par. I swear its going to take me going to one of those comic con things to talk to the devs face to face to finally get real changes.

So what you're saying is, don't play on Freedom and Virtue.
(I kid, I kid.)

Argumentum ad populum

At least one of the two large servers is well known as a hive of ignorance. For reasons unknown, people there propagate some of the game's most pervasive biases and prejudices, based on out of date or sometimes flat out wrong information. I would advise people to never take anything they hear on that server at face value, no matter how many people they hear say the thing in question.

Stalkers have there faults, and I'd like to see them addressed somehow some day, but taking it to "lol stalkers" smacks of backwater ignorance.

Not sure what you are talking about. Ran a 29:13 LGTF with a peacebringer and he didn't slow down things at all.