Stalkers need dev attention even disregading other ATs
By
Angelic_EU,
Posted on: 2011-07-07 16:35 in Stalkers
If their survival remains the same they need (as far as PVE is concerned) higher base accuracy and tohit capability.
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I love Stalkers, I'm not like Johnny Butane who is proposing changes to Tankers all the time but he does sound likes he hates the AT. I truly love Stalkers. But honestly, my SM/Ele Brute and my FM/SD scrapper can solo anything at +3, +4, I REALLY don't see how a Stalker would solo better even at a low mob setting and my scrappers/brutes not using AoEs. Hell my ST focused dark/dark scrapper (not the sturdiest of builds, no defenses, etc) could solo much faster than my EM/Nin Stalker in Invincible (that's what's +3 was called back them right?).|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
I also want to say that before they give that many options for game setting, Stalkers could probably solo better at +3 because the mob size is usually just 1-3 enemies.
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I didn't mean this thread to be another 'compare ATs' but I really, really disagree Stalkers solo better than Scrappers unless you stealth and go to the glowie or stuff like that any toon with SS+Stealth IO can do.
That's not to say Stalkers aren't good soloers, I faceplant a lot more on my blasters (my fault for loving the /fire secondary, /ice is almost a controller and /mm has the crazy regen power). But since Stalker soloing, although I disagree with your statement, is fine (not excellent since Scrappers are still the kings of melee AV soloing, which already makes your argument that they solo better invalid), what I'm looking for is making them more useful for teams (ok desirable too, although I never had problems joining trials and stuff with my Stalkies) and fixing the damn broken HP cap (yeah I know I sound like a broken record, but with the exception of trollers and blasters not getting full advantage of Hoarfrost and Earth's Embrace, we are the ONLY AT that do not benefit fully from +HP powers, especially sincein the troller/blaster case we're talking about 2 specific powers in epic pools, not powers that every WP/regen/ice armor stalker will get like HPT, Dull Pain, etc).
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I am just trying to find something that Stalker is better than Scrapper..... stop pouring down cold water! :P |
Originally Posted by Kioshi
I love Stalkers, I'm not like Johnny Butane who is proposing changes to Tankers all the time but he does sound likes he hates the AT. I truly love Stalkers. But honestly, my SM/Ele Brute and my FM/SD scrapper can solo anything at +3, +4, I REALLY don't see how a Stalker would solo better even at a low mob setting and my scrappers/brutes not using AoEs. Hell my ST focused dark/dark scrapper (not the sturdiest of builds, no defenses, etc) could solo much faster than my EM/Nin Stalker in Invincible (that's what's +3 was called back them right?).
I didn't mean this thread to be another 'compare ATs' but I really, really disagree Stalkers solo better than Scrappers unless you stealth and go to the glowie or stuff like that any toon with SS+Stealth IO can do. That's not to say Stalkers aren't good soloers, I faceplant a lot more on my blasters (my fault for loving the /fire secondary, /ice is almost a controller and /mm has the crazy regen power). But since Stalker soloing, although I disagree with your statement, is fine (not excellent since Scrappers are still the kings of melee AV soloing, which already makes your argument that they solo better invalid), what I'm looking for is making them more useful for teams (ok desirable too, although I never had problems joining trials and stuff with my Stalkies) and fixing the damn broken HP cap (yeah I know I sound like a broken record, but with the exception of trollers and blasters not getting full advantage of Hoarfrost and Earth's Embrace, we are the ONLY AT that do not benefit fully from +HP powers, especially sincein the troller/blaster case we're talking about 2 specific powers in epic pools, not powers that every WP/regen/ice armor stalker will get like HPT, Dull Pain, etc). |
I am not disagreeing that a well built Scrapper can solo better than Stalker. After all, what's the best time Stalker can take down a pylon?
I also don't play Scrapper/Brute/Tanker much, so my love for Stalker is pretty subjective and narrow-minded. Others, like you, who play other melee ATs can certainly share your opinions why Stalker needs more dev's attention. I'll take any buff I can get!
I know I am the only person who plays Stalker in our nightly group. We have a running joke. Whenever we get a team wipe, JUST BLAME STALKER!
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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Well the truth is, I like Stalkers more than the others in theory, but in practice I have three 50 brutes, 1 50 scrapper and several at 40s (since as I said I took an almost 2yr break and I've been playing lowbies in Praetoria) but.. I have rolled a LOT more Stalkers, it's just that they seem to get stuck in the 25-30 range. I only have one at 50. I really love their concept and I'm always excited to level them up to.. Well right when you and I both said they get less and less effective. Hell the only guide I ever made was for EM/Nin (the 50 one I have and played a lot even before the buffs we got in i12), but that was before the EM nerf.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
I am just trying to find something that Stalker is better than Scrapper..... stop pouring down cold water! :P
I am not disagreeing that a well built Scrapper can solo better than Stalker. After all, what's the best time Stalker can take down a pylon? I also don't play Scrapper/Brute/Tanker much, so my love for Stalker is pretty subjective and narrow-minded. Others, like you, who play other melee ATs can certainly share your opinions why Stalker needs more dev's attention. I'll take any buff I can get! I know I am the only person who plays Stalker in our nightly group. We have a running joke. Whenever we get a team wipe, JUST BLAME STALKER! |
And the only toon I bothered to respec for inherent fitness is my SM/Elec Brute because I enjoy her so much. The other 50 Brute I shelved (elec/Stone, ELM is too low on ST imo, I might try to salvage him sometime), and after coming back I self-pled a SS/FA in 3 days, maybe took me 8 hours total to get to 50. He was eant to be a pure farmer since I'm poor now, but... I know, SS/FA is kind of an outlier but the it does so much freaking damage, both ST and AoE (in +4/x8 farms with bosses I don't even use ST attacks except in the end when there are two bosses with low health - yeah Fury+Rage+damage Aura+ AoEs are enough to kill +4 bosses), well he does so much damage I actually got to find the toon very fun to play so instead of farming I'm doing trials and TFs with him - he got all the T3s already. I don't think I ever played a toon that did so much damage, it's ridiculous, and I'm not only talking about ambush farms where you're always at the aggro cap and full fury.
Anyway, despite me thinking that Stalkers shouldn't 'outdamage everyone all the time' and disagreeing with you in one or another point, despite everyone here having an opinion about the AT, Stalkers need help. Since GR is new to me, I'm playing lowbies all the time, and it's extremely rare to see a Stalker in Praetoria, while I see many doms for example, a class that was also very rare before the change (except those pl'ed fire/psi farmers in Grandville or the PvP mind/fires). I think I saw more Epic Hero ATs than Stalkers on the trials I've been on, even Peacebringers who are notable underperformers, on Freedom. On Virtue there seems to be more Stalkers, I've been playing there more than Freedom unlike before, but Virtue players are usually more tied to concepts than in Freedom (for example, they usually really go deep in customizing their bios and toon costumes, not necessarily talking about RPers, but you wanna see well made toons in the aesthetic department, go there, you'll see some weird powerset combos sometimes but real pretty toons, they really give a lot of thought about names, bios and costumes, that's why I think I see more Stalkers there, they are less min maxers than us Freedomites - IIRC you play on Freedom).
And even in Virtue I saw way more Villain Epic ATs in trials than Stalkers. I know it's only my impression from 1 month coming back to the game but seeing so few Stalkers in Praetoria and in high level content, even less than the Epic ATs, screams that we need some buffage somehow.
Right after the Stalker buff in i12, one of those number crunchers that live in the scrapper forums (Umbral I think) did some complex maths and the conclusion was that even when Stalkers were with all the team members glued to them (maximum crit chance) they ended up more or less equal than a scrapper if the scrapper was only using ST attacks - with the scrapper using his extra AoEs, damage auras etc they outperformed Stalkers in teams no matter if the Stalker crit chance was 31%.
I don't want to turn Stalkers into scrappers with Hide like Leo_G also doesn't, but... We need a help in some way. I'm always thinking how much I like my Elec/Regen and my DM/EA Stalkers but everytime I run the game I end up choosing one of my high level brutes or my lowbie doms/brutes while those Stalkers have been stuck at 25-30 for ages.
(I wasn't much of a melee player before, usully played trollers for crowd control and support and the occasional Stalker, but I figured I should try something different and I'm enjoying Brutes and Doms so much after the changes). Even my DP/Fire Blaster (an AT I never got past 25) who faceplants all the time because of the low DP damage and 'cause I'm soloing her to read the Praetorian story arcs gets some playtime even when I log in thinking about respeccing my old stalkers or rolling a new one. I logged in a lot of times tempted to roll a KM toon since I haven't played the set but... either I play one of my existing toons or I roll something different, I don't think I'll roll another Stalker soon because I have too many toons in the 12-20 range now (three doms, two brutes and the blaster).
Test_Rat is seen in these forums as a 'debbie downer' because he always says things like 'ST toons are crap, AS is crap, etc' but he actually got to play a lot of Stalkers and I teamed with him before I left sometimes, he's a real nice person in game, gave me a lot of advice on some ATs I was learning at the time like traps and dark corrs (I only have one defender because I find controllers outclasses them in every way, that's my opinion, I don't think Defenders are actually bad) - I think that's a case of being so disappointed with the Stalker AT he got bitter with it, he doesn't act like that in other AT forums.
I never farm and have no desire to but I did see one very wealthy SS/Fire Brute recently. Oh my god. What did they do to Burn? Not only it no longer "fears", it does ridiculously amount of high burst damage. Fury can really buff Burn's damage so much. I saw one dude camping at the door in BAF and literally everything dies before they even get out. That's ridiculous.
And the funny thing is I don't even think that SS/Fire survives that bad. At some point, the dev gotta look at Damage VS Survival ratio and say "mmmm, maybe they buffed Burn too much?" They could have just kept the old Burn but reduce the fear effect. The new Burn looks very overpowering to me on Brute because at least Scrapper can't critical with Burn.
Well, from what I've seen, we already have quite a few ATs that are doing "too much" damage. The gap between certain sets and set combination is just too wide especially when you put set bonuses and alpha into the equation.
Besides Stalker, I play mostly SoA and I know my Bane (all melee mace) performs way superior than any of my Stalker.
At the end of the day, I still think Assassin Strike is the main problem. This signature power sucks at high level. It is cool when you get it at lvl 6 because nobody else is overpowering at lvl 6. And the 2nd biggest problem is that some sets just need to be re-designed a bit like what they did for Kinetic Melee.
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.
I don't see why this keeps getting brought up. AS is the only solid mechanic in the game that operates 100% as intended. You're hidden and that's your backstab, if killorder is what you yearn for than using AS mid fight is not the brightest idea.
I could agree, give it more damage. I'd also say make it when out of Hide that it becomes an instant attack - without the chargeup.
Rather have AS for the stalker than the scrapper mindset: "I'm a claymore, just point me in the right direction."
I personally would trade some damage for shorter interuptable time (if not none at all) and fast animation on AS. So it can be used far more often.
Increasing the HP would be nice too.
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Perhaps the ability to slot AS with interrupt reducers would do exactly this? Wouldn't be an unreasonable thing to ask for, IMHO.
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Originally Posted by Angelic_EU
I personally would trade some damage for shorter interuptable time (if not none at all) and fast animation on AS. So it can be used far more often.
Increasing the HP would be nice too. |
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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I've seen the same thing (also on Virtue, but I doubt that matters). I've run maybe a dozen trials so far with my Stalker and I can only recall seeing another Stalker in the league maybe on two of those occasions. That's saying something when it's a dozen teams of 16-24 people.
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Originally Posted by Kioshi
And even in Virtue I saw way more Villain Epic ATs in trials than Stalkers. I know it's only my impression from 1 month coming back to the game but seeing so few Stalkers in Praetoria and in high level content, even less than the Epic ATs, screams that we need some buffage somehow.
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Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
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Same here. Usually on a League I'm either the only Stalker or there is one other.
It's rare that I see multiple Stalkers on a league.
This is also on Virtue.
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I think they need to reduce both activation time and interrupt. Personally, I find activation time more annoying than the interrupt part. I can see why they put interrupt there so you don't super run and then activate AS.
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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
Perhaps the ability to slot AS with interrupt reducers would do exactly this? Wouldn't be an unreasonable thing to ask for, IMHO.
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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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Would rather not have to spend slots. I'd prefer they just cut the interrupt time to a quarter of a second or something like that. That would still prevent the power from being used to "joust" since you'd still have to come to a complete stop before activating and you'd still have to be within LOS when the attack lands, but it would greatly improve the chances of actually getting off a successful strike.|
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
Perhaps the ability to slot AS with interrupt reducers would do exactly this? Wouldn't be an unreasonable thing to ask for, IMHO.
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The other thing that would be nice is another increase in the waylay damage. It was a good move when it went up to 2.5 scale, but that is STILL below average DPA compared to most sets' other ST attacks. With the lousy DPA and interrupt chance, it's still a very bad gamble to use outside of Hide for most Stalkers. Raising the waylay again to 2.8 or 3.0 scale would help fix that. And though it might be wishful thinking, it'd be nice if they could chop a few animation frames from some of the sets' Assassin Strikes to normalize them all at Kinetic Melee's 2.67s cast time. THEN you have an attack that is generally useful outside of Hide instead of just situational, but at the same time it still rewards you for using it from Hide with a higher critical than other attacks.
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
I only play on Freedom and I also haven't seen that many high level Stalkers. I've seen way more high level Dominators though. Dom and Stalker used to be the least favorite children but Dominator has really climbed up the ladder in terms of popularity contest.
I think being a "Stalker" means you'll never win the popularity contest. 
However, the dev did go through some MAJOR changes for dominator. They adjusted damage/endurance/recharge ratio for a lot of powers in the old sets. They did it because Domination was changed and some sets were just very under-performing (Energy Assault and Thorn Assault for example).
I wish the dev could go through Stalker's old sets as well. Almost every set is an identical version of Brute/Scrapper (minus some important pbaoe). In theory, that isn't right because Stalker needs more powers that deliver big base damage (therefore, higher critical damage) than having smaller-damage with faster recharge. Claw is a perfect example. Claw Stalker really doesn't need both tier 1 and tier 2 attack. Martial Arts is another example. Why would any melee needs to have 7 melee attack? Thunder Kick really has no place.
In fact, when they improve critical chance, I am surprised they didn't do something more for Energy melee. One can't critical full and one can't even critical.
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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If TF had a full crit it would do more damage than Assassin Strike AND pack a guaranteed mag 3 stun, with no chance of an interrupt. And ET would be even worse. The only thing they could really do would be to make TF do less normal damage, equivalent to Eagle's Claw. Then it could have a full crit and faster recharge, with less endurance cost.
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Originally Posted by Jibikao
In fact, when they improve critical chance, I am surprised they didn't do something more for Energy melee. One can't critical full and one can't even critical.
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Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
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*facepalm*|
Originally Posted by Zem
If TF had a full crit it would do more damage than Assassin Strike AND pack a guaranteed mag 3 stun, with no chance of an interrupt. And ET would be even worse. The only thing they could really do would be to make TF do less normal damage, equivalent to Eagle's Claw. Then it could have a full crit and faster recharge, with less endurance cost.
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Fail devs. Your regular attacks were making your unwieldy and gimmicky so-called signature power look naff in comparison, so you nerf the regular attacks? Say what?
OMG! How like, totally kewl are these characters?!1
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At the time, buffing Assassin Strike wasn't an option. Power effects couldn't be separated between PvE and PvP and they didn't want Assassin Strike able to do that much damage in PvP. At least that'd be my guess.|
Originally Posted by oreso
*facepalm*
Fail devs. Your regular attacks were making your unwieldy and gimmicky so-called signature power look naff in comparison, so you nerf the regular attacks? Say what? |
Personally, I think they could increase the total damage from AS when used within Hide to around scale 8 or 9 in PvE without unbalancing anything. What you don't want is for AS to become the ONLY thing you use in a single-target encounter. Anything more than scale 9 damage and you get into that territory where doing nothing at all in-between Assassin Strikes becomes as good or better DPS than scrapping it out. You can theoretically re-hide once every 8 seconds but only if your timing is absolutely perfect. Add a second or two of padding and scale 9 damage once per 9 seconds = scale 1 DPS, which you can probably still beat with a normal ST attack chain in most primaries. But not if AS is made any stronger than that. And of course anything that encourages you to wait for Hide to re-engage works that much better on defense-based sets than the others. So it's not exactly fair.
So getting back around to Energy Melee... if they increased AS's total damage they could also give TF a full crit. Energy Transfer is another story. It was never a "regular" attack to begin with and should never get a full crit, if any crit. It's allowed to break the normal rules for balancing attacks because it also damages the user, but as they say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and that's certainly the case with ET. Most of the time, even for a stalker, the self-damage is a non issue so the extra damage ET does is pretty much free. It doesn't deserve a crit. People complain about ET now only because they remember how absolutely ridiculous it used to be. It's STILL an exceptionally good attack even with the longer animation and 50% stun.
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
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Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
Oh I kept mentioning Virtue because since I've been almost exclusively there lately and noticed (had noticed before I left) that people love their concepts so they're more 'able' to take a Stalker or a PB, two notably underperforming classes, to 50, since they worked so much on the theme, the costumes, the concept of the toon (seriously you Virtue guys really make the best costumes) while on Freedom people usually don't have bios on their toons (I rarely do) and there are a lot more speed tfs going on, sometimes it seems like it's the only kind they do there. Not bashing on Freedom, my experience there is mostly positive, as in Virtue, but on Freedom people seem more interested in playing the 'better' (in the sense of being popular and well known for their power such as SS;Fire, Fire/MM blasters, etc - of course AE in Virtue is filled with /FA Butes, although surprisingly they aren't 99% SS like in Freedom). One thing I noticed also... While in Freedom you find more of the elitist players, you rarely encounter really obnoxious players (I'm a very tolerant person so ymmv) - in Virtue the community and channels are more chattery and people seem more wiling to help with my noob praetoria, tips and trial questions, but on the (rare, like 3 occasions) I encountered an a-hole there it was really distressing - from a Tanker running radios and kicking me (blaster) and a dom because we wouldn't wait for him to 'get all the aggro'. Hell nobody was dying and even if we were, it wasn't a MoSTF, to some guy mocking me because I commented that powersets get buffed when they get ported to heroes - I was called a whiner and worse stuff, of course i ignored them, it was only two players on the channel, the others asked me why I said that and even although some disagreed it was a nice argument. I like both servers in different ways, of course being the most populated you'll find some rude people along the way, guess it's the internets 'wall of defense' you get - I treat people in the net like I treat them live, but I'm digressing, I love both servers but I think I've ben enjoying Virtue more.
In all my blabbering I forgot to say the reason I talked about Virtue - it's because since they seem to love their toons' themes more, I see Stalkers, PBs and other 'sub optimal AT/powersets' while Stalkers in Freedom are now almost non-existant after level 20. In trials I have yet to see one, while I saw som in Virtue, at least one in each full BAF.
@Jibikao, seriously man, the reason you might find the SS/FA Brute you saw not so frail is the crazy stupid amount of damage and the quick recharging heal. My SS/FA got killed a lot before his level shift but now with t3 on everything (and with only 30% global rech plus spiritual) I destroy things very fast on trials, on the ITF I didn't even think before jumping in a full mob before the tank. In the Cim wall, I can be at 0 Fury, a Rage+FE+Burn+FS combo is enough to kill everyone (lvl 52 mobs, I think it's the max I found there), even before my level shift, I don't even need to use Fireball, I just throw a fireblast because the surgeon always runs after I start attacking. Also, with Spiritual Heling flames is up so often... I'm not even in a rush to get to make his permahasten build, I don't enjoy farming as much as a TF or some trials (or even normal teaming) and in the rare occasion I farm with him (although I built him to be a farmer but had so much fun with the damage I incarnated him till all the t3s) my AoEs are always ready because I also have to manage inspirations (purples and reds, I made binds to make them, after agelss no blues needed anymore).
Back to Stalkers, I finally rolled another one and got her to 8 - after all I had to play KM sometime, make a KM/EA and really enjoying the set. Haven't been playing that much tho because I got Rift for 9.99 on a sale (collector edition which is 25 bucks,comes with a mount, good deal) and the skill leveling system is awesome, you can have a Rogue with 4 builds - one that can tank, another ranged only, another with buffs and dps and healing, it's like changing your Rad/Sonic defender to a FF/Psy alternate build, very nice system - although the game is not much more than a faster paced World of you-know, no biggie if I give up on it since I just spent 10 dollars besides the sub. And of course with my new computer I had to see a MMO with OMG graphics (it's a 2011 game after all).
But I know I'm not giving up on CoX, it's way too much fun. I tried the other hero game that went free, some other MMOs and although I love the way you build your character in Rift, no MMO is this fast paced, in all the others besides CoX I knew I would die in 5-10 seconds if I didn't do this or that (or ran if I could), while in Cox you can confidently go face a mob and get killed in 1 second because you forgot something or took too late to activate a power.
Sorry, insomia makes me dabble and derail my own thread 
but I guess that besides my problem with the HP cap and wanting Stalkers to get buffed somehow I don't have much to say about them anymore - it's weird how I like them so much but most end up stuck in 25-30 even being my favorite melee AT. And as people said, theyre very rare in trials. On Freedom I almost stop seeing them after Cap Au Diablo, in Mercy and PO you still see quite a few but we all have leveled toons till 10 or so and decided we didn't like them, I think that's what happens to Stalkers (I must've gotten 5 PBs to 10-15 lol).
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Since I babbled too much on my previous post, I'd like to address this separately. I think TF should get its mag 4 stun back at least, ET is fine as it is now (although it was so fun kill stealing the KO Blow using and other teammates with ET back in the day) and doesn't 'deserve' a crit like you said. Two nerfs were too much imho, especially when you compare it to sets like SS (it has Rage to fuel various KO Blows) and the 1.5 sec animating mag 4 hold in Seismic Smash. That's why I'd like MA to get Dragon's Tail, I think EM would be fine with TF on mag 4/critting properly (or at least a bit more so it doesn't oveshadow AS) and being the only primary having ST attacks only.|
Originally Posted by Zem
If TF had a full crit it would do more damage than Assassin Strike AND pack a guaranteed mag 3 stun, with no chance of an interrupt. And ET would be even worse. The only thing they could really do would be to make TF do less normal damage, equivalent to Eagle's Claw. Then it could have a full crit and faster recharge, with less endurance cost.
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Just to give some numbers... (unenhanced, no BU, I'm on Mac OS X now, no Mids):
AS = about 390 dmg when hidden
TF = about 198 dmg normally, add 55.6 when hidden (so crits are about 253 dmg), so if it critted for double it would crit for about 396 (rounding numbers here, I'm sleepy), doing more than AS. EC crits for 324, TF could crit for about that (or a bit less like 300-315, M.Grasp crits for 307) and retain the mag 4 for the long animation time and longer recharge compared to these other powers.
I was reading just page 1 of this and it spiked my curiosity so I logged onto my Elec/Elec stalker with some IO sets, all 4 villain accolades, and a t4 Alpha(Spiritual Core Paragon) and HE has 1606.35hp. From what I gathered that's the hp cap for stalkers, right? So I really feel bad for regen stalkers since you can basically skip dull pain if you want and hit the hp cap. Still acts as a heal, but with no +max hp bonus it really defeats the purpose of boosting your regen.
I'm on your side after looking more into the information, I feel they could benefit from a higher hp cap, especially sets that rely on regen to survive. If I misunderstood something about the hp cap and am wrong sorry, don't know alot about hp/damage caps and stuff.
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I guess they can buff other energy powers more. I understand why they can't give full critical to TF but the fact that these two powers don't receive full critical value puts Energy melee at disadvantage when Stalker has full team critical buff and Energy Melee has zero aoe. |
Originally Posted by Zem
If TF had a full crit it would do more damage than Assassin Strike AND pack a guaranteed mag 3 stun, with no chance of an interrupt. And ET would be even worse. The only thing they could really do would be to make TF do less normal damage, equivalent to Eagle's Claw. Then it could have a full crit and faster recharge, with less endurance cost.
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I've never tried EM but I've seen how fast ET was.
And doesn't Energy Melee have a regular stun power? Does that do anything special? I know they buffed Cobra Strike to match Crane Kick. Not sure if this is an option?
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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Yeah you're at the HP cap. You didn't misunderstood, let me quote myself here because I posted this previously in the thread:|
Originally Posted by Electro_Breaker
I was reading just page 1 of this and it spiked my curiosity so I logged onto my Elec/Elec stalker with some IO sets, all 4 villain accolades, and a t4 Alpha(Spiritual Core Paragon) and HE has 1606.35hp. From what I gathered that's the hp cap for stalkers, right? So I really feel bad for regen stalkers since you can basically skip dull pain if you want and hit the hp cap. Still acts as a heal, but with no +max hp bonus it really defeats the purpose of boosting your regen.
I'm on your side after looking more into the information, I feel they could benefit from a higher hp cap, especially sets that rely on regen to survive. If I misunderstood something about the hp cap and am wrong sorry, don't know alot about hp/damage caps and stuff. |
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Scrapper with Dull Pain slotted to ED cap for heal - 2132 hp - 2400 with accolades, almost their cap. Stalker with Dull Pain unslotted - 1685 hp. Oh wait the cap is 1606 like blasters and trollers and corruptors and defenders so sucks to be you regen Stalker(and ice in i21), you'll stop at 1606 regardless of sets +hp bonuses and accolades. Your Dull Pain/Hoarfrost is only a big heal with lousy recharge. (If the cap was higher, my regen Stalker could go to 1918 - only 200 less than the Scrapper, or 2159 with accolades - with IOs we could reach the Scrapper cap of 2409 since it's not hard to build an IO'ed Stalker without a +hp power that hits the 1606 cap) Willpower Stalker with HPT - 1561 hp - get one accolade and you're at the cap, isn't that nice? Screw if you have IO +hp bonuses they're good for nothing since HPT is an auto power. People say overload is the best tier 9 'godmode' (if you like godmodes, I personally do) because it raises your max hp. I don't need to say Stalkers benefit very little from it. Brutes can go from 1499 (base hp without accos) to 2692 HP with Overload. Stalkers go from 1204 to.... 1606 lol. |
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Originally Posted by Jibikao
I guess they can buff other energy powers more. I understand why they can't give full critical to TF but the fact that these two powers don't receive full critical value puts Energy melee at disadvantage when Stalker has full team critical buff and Energy Melee has zero aoe.
I've never tried EM but I've seen how fast ET was. And doesn't Energy Melee have a regular stun power? Does that do anything special? I know they buffed Cobra Strike to match Crane Kick. Not sure if this is an option? |
I actually like Stalkers for soloing because most of the time it's not just button-mashing (that's what Brutes are for); but with the way the game is set up, on teams button-mashing is pretty much all you need. I just think that if the devs are going to try to force balance on melee ATs they should force it on all of them. I want some consistency.
Now, other ATs like Brute/Scrapper can get faster exp by doing it +1x4 or 6 or even higher, so Stalker's advantage in soloing has suddenly decreased (not vanished because you can try to farm with Spines/Electricity).
I also like Stalker's soloing style as I can just take my time and find my target but soloing "efficiently" is no longer Stalker's speciality.
(This also applies to debuff sets like /Poison that used to have an edge in soloing but not anymore)
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.