Street Fighting coming up!

That depends. Are the points tied to an AS critical or any hit with AS, even outside of Hide? If the latter, then it might well be worth using AS outside of Hide. Not the best DPA but if it comes with 3 combo points and you're not currently the focus of a lot of aggro, why not?

Let me give you another reason why I hate any of the "features" tie to Assassin Strike.

Tonight I started a Tin Mage team and I was on my martial arts Stalker. I specifically tried to use more AS because I really want to know what you see in AS that I don't see.

Well, in the first mission we actually aggro a lot of Clockworks. I don't know what it is but now most "Incarnates" think they are invincible and they just don't take their time anymore. Needlessly to say, we just "go, go, go". We killed the first two elite robots and moved on to the next field. Oh my, was there even a moment that I didn't have any dot damage on me. Those clockworks shoot some kind of beam that just keeps doing "dot, dot, dot". Not a whole lot of damage but I couldn't even get one AS off when we get swarmed. This means I only have time to do Placate + Eagle Claw. Great damage, not setup and no loss of endurance due to interruption. The only way I could get an AS off is by running away, wait for 8s and then set it up. Do you know how much dps is loss by doing that way?!

The AV part is even worse. There are so much s!@#$ going on (bombs, missles..blah blah blah) that I just didn't even bother with setting up AS.

Ok, fine. Let's move on to 2nd mission. 2nd mission is even worse!!! Those IDF shoots so many burning missles on the ground. Every where I go there is some dot damage. Again, not a whole lot of damage but enough to annoy the hell of me. I say to hell with assassin strike and just stick with the good ole Eagle Claw and Ball of Lightning.

The final mission is where I use a few more AS but not many. Maybe 3 times that I can think of? Once at the first of the fight against Neuron and maybe twice against the other two big robots. As for kitty, she was a mad woman when the lover died. Her Spin did over 1600 damage on me and at one time she hit me over 2500 damage. Needlessly to say I died both times so I end up doing more "run and hit, run and hit". I didn't want to stay near her to let her spin or shockwave hit me.


The gist? Assassin Strike is pointless. The team doesn't need it and using it doesn't improve any of the gaming experience at all. Assassin Strike's damage isn't even high enough to take down 25% of a Clockwork Boss. I am +1 with tier 3 Musculature. And I rather use a BU + Eagle Claw on a Mender so I can start with a 100% stun and then finish off with other attacks.


So if Street Justice features combo points with Assassin Strike, then I won't be too interested unless they do other fancy stuff like 100% aoe damage or whatnot. I know it's bad habit to trash a set before it comes out but the one thing I really don't want them to do, they did it. I don't care if I can score 3 combo points with a regular AS outside of hidden. I just don't want the setup time, interruption and possible more endurance cost.

PS: And you wanna talk about Apex? Assassin Strike will be even more pointless. The first mission there is auto dot damage around pylon. And then there's endless ambush that you are better off using regular attacks. The final fight is even more worse. You need to watch out blue flame and tons sword ambushes. Why even bother setting up AS and taking the risk of getting interrupted and not doing enough damage when the chance is presented? Honestly, the only time that Assassin Strike is good for is when you run away, shake off some aggro and come back to the battle.

I tend to think it could be a mix of both. Some +damage with combo points. I can't imagine not having another +tohit buff.

Incarnate trials are particularly bad for Stalkers. If the stuff isn't auto-hit outright, in many cases it might as well be due to level differences (assuming you are not +3 shifted already) and/or to-hit buffs. I'd say the devs specifically went out of their way to hose anyone that relies on soft-cap defense by pushing the bar up a lot higher.

That said, the Lambda and BAF trials at least aren't quite as bad. I use AS quite a lot there provided the league has someone handling adds during the AV fights.

Before we go off the deep end about the combo points in AS, maybe I am just not understanding how this whole combo system is going to work but isn't it going to be relatively easy to get 3 combo points with the other builder attacks? If you're a fan of just scrapping normal attacks, I doubt you'll be hurting for combo points. Unless they are just a lot harder to build than I think they are. I haven't exactly been following every scrap of info about the new powersets.

My only doubt is extra combo points in Assassin Strike because there are situations where it's hard to set it up (burning patches on the ground being the most annoying). I do use AS but only when I feel the situation is right. I don't go out of my way to try to use AS whenever placate is up because I don't find it efficient enough.

I also don't know what Stalker is losing from SJ. We don't know if Stalker actually loses a pbaoe or just a single target attack or utility power of some sort.

Hopefully the "finishing" moves are so good that you feel you have to build up extra combo points by using AS. From reading the description, other regular attacks build up one point too. If that's the case... you can probably do two attacks before landing a successful AS and gain two points. The description only says 3 is the max. he can build for. At this rate, AS needs to give more than 3 points to make it worth the setup time because when you have all the attacks, you can gain combo point just as fast.

The only benefit is Stalker can start the fight with 3 points right after AS at the beginning of the battle.

I SO CALLED IT!

HAH.

Never playing streetjustice.

Good luck doing that on a resistance based stalker.

It's hardly breaking news that Stalkers work better with defense than resistance. You don't need to wish me luck doing this on a resistance based stalker when I have never and probably will never play one.

I don't see what the big deal is. It's not like the stalker version works counter to their playstyle. As the DBs combos aren't essential for damage, it's not far fetched that the max combos finishers are no more damaging than the regular level finisher. As far as I heard, it's just upping the secondary effect.

I will. Shouldn't be too hard considering all my resist/regen stalkers also have defense too. And how often are you not capped if not nearly so on mid-lvl teams now-a-days? LOL you speak as if people don't pick up maneuvers or play SoA or use IOs.

Probably not. I'm actually hoping SJ is an attack st that favors the Tanker/Brute rather than the other 2. Kinetic already leans more toward Scraps/Stalks so it's only fair. If the dmg buff is low (like 30%) and short (10 sec) but quick to recharge (30sec) That would lean the power more toward "click it for a quick finisher" rather than high-end DPS since the animation of the buff might eat into that a bit. It'd result in Scraps using it less like a perma-huge DPS gain and more toward how Stalker uses its placate.

The above might cost its popularity with Scraps but it'd be all the rage for Brutes and debuff-tastic with Tanker gauntlet -res + exploiting finishers. For Stalkers, it'd just be another one of those sets that has decent AoE. But that's just my speculation, no more unfounded that the rest of the stuff being thrown around in the thread.

It's really hard to say but I really don't want them to tie any features to assassin strike. Same reason why I don't like Empowered Combo or Sweep combo on Stalker dual blade. They did increase 1k cut range for Stalker and that's one feature that is good.

If Stalker needs more way to gain combo points since they don't get it from regular "build up", then I rather it be from other source(s).

I've given many reasons why I think using Assassin strike to gain extra combo points is inefficient. I want an overall improvement on AS but not specific features that tie to it because if the situation is bad and I can't get off an AS, then I am missing out on extra combo points that other melee ATs can have access to.

Stalker can start with more points but it is hardly an advantage because Finding Target, BU and then AS takes time. For all the time spent, the other melee probably already hit 3 times which give them 3 points.

This is far and away an example from DB combos.

But the way I see your stance is...you find using AS as a waste so don't want any extra features tied to it. AS itself probably takes the time of *at least* 2 attacks to use so removing this particular feature (AS having a +counter of 2 or 3 when the attacks possible in that time frame is possibly more) is literally making AS a worse choice of an attack in even more situations.

Fine. You don't like using AS. What about everyone else that wants to? It only makes sense that an attack that takes as long as at least 2 builders to complete grants at least 2 combo points.

Taking away the extra combo from AS and adding to other sources doesn't change your beloved Assassin Strike. You CAN still use it just like all the other Assassin Strike. While I don't like AS, I don't think it's a total waste. I just don't want to lose out on opportunities to build extra combo points when I am under heavy attacks or fighting with lots of burning patches on the ground.

I don't know how many points AS grants and I don't know if using other attacks build slower or faster. I just don't like it if the extra combo 'feature' is tied to AS, then it won't be as efficient, unless AS grants a lot of points. At this point, the max. seems to be 3. If they want to tie AS to extra combo points, then it should be at least 6 points so you can use two Finishers afterward. In fact, one of the things I was thinking is if combo points "expire" and if they can allow Stalker to carry more points than Brute/Scrapper/Tanker. If so, this could make SJ very interesting as Stalker finally has a way to "save up" more Heavy hits for next spawn. All is just pure speculations on my part. This is just one way I would set Stalker apart from other melee ATs because Stalker would need more opportunities for burst damage than the other 3.

It has a lot to do with how good the finishers are, which I have no idea. And I also have no desire to find out because I like to try new things when they come out. :P

I think you're looking too far into this combo level thing. I've heard that this system is like what Rogues use in som other game I haven't played but from other discussions detailing SJ...

You use builder attacks to build up your combo level. Each combo level has different effects added upto level 3 which is the max. Using a finisher *spends* ALL your combo levels and returns you to 0.

The only way your argument might seem like a problem is if the builders give less than half a point. Other than that, it's just a matter of 'spend the animation time = get the combo lvls'. You're not missing out on any opportunities if you're just attacking and AS should qualify as attacking.

So the only advantage to building lots of combo points I could see is to give you ample time to choose a target, get in range and use a finisher. Your points would expire but you'd still be at max...then you drop to 0 after the finisher...

While I personally love the AS mechanic, I wouldn't mind if the combo tied to AS while out of hidden made the attack instant and deal enough damage to cover the cost (that being unhidden and using AS does drastically less damage as it is). As a Finisher under AS, it should be the most devastating attack in it's arsenal and one I'd highly recommend for being the Concentrated Strikex5 of StJ.

Personally I like the sounds of it all still, can't wait to try it out. It's the animations that kind of bug me.

Just curious, is there a video or something showing the animations? Or did you happen to see it at the Comic Con? If possible I'd love to see the animations

Nope. Just seen the names of powers and the screen shot of a Shoryuken (Crushing Uppercut - T9) here on the forums. It's the idea I'm interested in.


I also want to see the animations however. I'm not too excited about the AS animation at the moment and kind of wish they took the sneak attack Capt gets from Captain America Super Soldier: You tap the guy on the shoulder and swing a right hook into their face.