Why is the stalker community non existant on the VIP beta?

Exactly. I did, however, bring up the fact 3 out of 4 Epic powers cannot critical for Stalker. I PM Synapse about this. He said they only have time to work on whatever they are testing in beta forum. Everything else will have to wait. This is like the biggest issue ever?

(Synapse did an internal test and he said none of epic powers are labeled as "critical". I find that a bit strange.... this is why we need to keep bringing up the issues because we think they know all the bugs, but they don't. I've tested Epic power again recently and only Fire mastery can critical and critical too much! I think they spend most of the time testing "newer" stuff. The old stuff? Not so much.)

I have a feeling the new power team may take another direction for Stalker if we bring up the issues enough. Castle thought Stalker is as good as it gets but I sense that other dev feel a bit differently.

There is a post about ranking your favorite ATs and Stalker ranks at the bottom of the barrel easily. lol No surprise there. Stalker's current mechanism just isn't very "assassin-like" in this game. Stalker isn't the only AT that can stealth. In other games, stealth powers are a lot more restricted to certain class only. In this game? Anyone can get stealth and perform relatively well. So if you hate Stalkers but you like stealthing, you are more than welcome to pick Scrapper with stealth powers/set.

Well, he noted that in his opinion most of the problems were overall concerns with the engine as a whole as opposed to the class directly. While I feel more could be done with the class, it can be pointed out that there's a number of things the make a Stalker's job either more difficult or somewhat obsolete. At the same time, it seems like buffing Stalkers would be easier because it's near impossible to get to get engine changes done unless they affect very specific things. Which is frustrating since a number of things seem like simple changes such as making the epics crit or increasing the radius for the team crit bonus.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

It may be a bit strong, but here're what's behind that thought. (note: shortened short version: I think they don't understand badgers, I don't think they have anything against badgers, that's all)

It took how long for them to fix empath after admitting it was bugged?

There are still how many bugs with badges?

Glad to see that it is possible to find out which 1 of the 13 praetorians you're missing... finally. But did they take the oft-mentioned suggestion and update the badge tool to give you the info? No you have to go character by character to talk to an NPC each time you want to check. And all those other badges with multiple tasks you still have no way to figure out which task you haven't done short of manually checking for each component.

So, how're the charges on that Mission Architect Day Job Accolade working out for ya? Oh that's right, you never get any charges on the self-rez, it's still borked. Any plans to fix it? Not that I have heard of.

Were you one of the badgers that earned all the early mission architect badges only to have them taken away?

They have recently said in one of the interviews that gladiator badges didn't work out the way they hoped, but no plans to fix the situation, they'll just let 'em die.

Treating the Oroboros pseudo-taskforces to a badge? Not likely to happen.

Etc.

The new devs may have a different attitude, but I believe it was Posi who said that badging is a "journey" that measures what you have done, not a goal in itself, and that they will continue to base their designs and badge requirements on that theory.

Compare that to the way they really do try hard on the game text, new challenges and new content being more fun and having new mechanics. The new costumes, or hell ,just look at Jay's costume thread. Power Proliferation. Etc. Many other areas of the game get a lot more enthusiastic support from the devs than badging. And the Devs pretty clearly understand those areas of the game. I don't think they understand badging besides an intellectual grasp on the idea that some players want all of the badges. The motive and the experience of badging seems outside their "ken". I don't think (and didn't mean to imply) they screw over badgers in any way shape or form, and it is clear they are adding more badges with clever names because they know badgers care about new badges, and like the badge titles. So they do try with the badgers. but I also don't feel they understand badgers. And I don't think badge issues have very high priority.

And I feel that we are in the same boat. I don't think the devs really understand stalkers. And I don't think we have very high priority.

I played Lord of the Ring online a bit before I came back here and one of the things that "Burglar" class does (besides being the only class that can stealth as far as I know) is that he can trigger Team Coordinated attack more often than other classes (it's another name in the game but this is close enough).

Team Coordinated attack is useful in Raid and Large team because it can offer HUGE damage or huge healing or energy fuel if the healer/mage needs it. There are different effects depending on how the team member chooses it when it happens. It's pretty neat.

I know CoV doesn't have Team Coordinated attack but I thought it's neat that they give Burglar another "purpose" for the team. Burglar in Lotr is actually a Melee/Debuff/control hybrid.


I know there are a few things that they can't improve for Stalker but what else is in this game that can give Stalker a special spot?

If Single Target Burst damage is Stalker's special trait, then I can honestly say it's not superior enough.

If Stalker is supposed to be the King of stealth, then I can honestly say Stalker is not superior enough without unsuppressed Stealth. Stalker should have unsuppressed stealth in pve and not Brute!


There are still rooms for improvement that won't break the game's balance. Hell, what is the base-line for this game's balance anyway? I am already seeing people soloing TFs that are meant for a group!

The game changed, I remember I always found a good use for my Stalkers even before the i12 buff. And I also remember that the first time I felt completely useless on my IO'ed EM/Nin was on an ITF because of the AoE heavy stuff, there were like 2 fire blasters on the team and a SS/Will Brute. Since the SS/Will was always with AB (meaning crazy regen and chaining footstomp and KO Blow) on, it looked like he was soloing the damn thing. And with so many targets, it was not much of a difference if I went for those lousy surgeons since everyone was AoE'ing things to death.

After that the game shifted to AoE content - just look at the ghoul missions in Praetoria, even the lowbie ones. I set my toons to solo at 0/x2 at least since level 1, but I can't do that on Praetoria on Ghoul and Clockwork missions because there are so many of them. Same for new TFs, Trials, etc. So yes we need a new role for Stalkers.

I've been away from the game due to work and have been playing Rift a bit - cool game, some say it's WoW with 2011 gfx but I can't compare because I haven't played WoW for more than 1 week. The rogue class there has a lot of debuffs, some 'soul trees' (powersets) have AS, others have ranged attacks or pets (you can have 3 powersets there so you can get all that, of course you have limited points to distribute among them), it's a very nice class. It also has the same combo system as the Street Justice powerset, all rogues get that, combo points and finishers (which afaik WoW introduced it).

But... Well, giving Stalkers a 'new role' would require a major tweak on the AT.