Lists of things we could do for Stalkers
By
AzureSkyCiel,
Posted on: 2011-08-24 10:35 in Suggestions and Ideas
Quick agreements to making Hide inherent, the placate bugs, etc. and hit point boost.
Have to chew through some of the rest. One I will address:
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Aside from not knowing if it's doable, I don't find this situation such a big deal (yes, I do play stalkers.) I might not get the AS (though, if it's something like a mayhem and I can duck through doors, I get a free shot anyway - target as soon as the door opening animation starts, AS will go off before the NPC can do anything,) but I can usually use terrain to break LOS, pick a target, and get a good, solid crit on them as the fight starts. Scrapping the rest, really, just isn't that big a deal IMHO, especially with the occasional placate. If you're solo, the ambush probably isn't that big. On a team, you've got others to help deal with it.
| *Fix the "ambush bug:" When a player-targeted ambush spawns, it immediately knows where the Stalker is, and heads over to attack him, making Assassin's Strike and Hide pretty much useless, reducing the Stalker to a somewhat gimped Scrapper. Make a special exception for Stalkers where player-triggered ambushes head for the Stalker's last known position, instead of heading straight for the Stalker, or alternately make ambushes unable to attack stealthed players that they cannot see. We can't attack invisible things ("Target too hard to see"), so can't the AI be made to do the same? |
Sam: It would be a good start. 
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
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I tried to start with the ones that would sound more reasonable |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Quick agreements to making Hide inherent, the placate bugs, etc. and hit point boost.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Aside from not knowing if it's doable, I don't find this situation such a big deal (yes, I do play stalkers.) I might not get the AS (though, if it's something like a mayhem and I can duck through doors, I get a free shot anyway - target as soon as the door opening animation starts, AS will go off before the NPC can do anything,) but I can usually use terrain to break LOS, pick a target, and get a good, solid crit on them as the fight starts. Scrapping the rest, really, just isn't that big a deal IMHO, especially with the occasional placate. If you're solo, the ambush probably isn't that big. On a team, you've got others to help deal with it.
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More to point, though, I agree that this is not a big deal. However, ambushes more than most circumstances serve to rob Stalkers of their AT-defining mechanic, and they really run counter to what Stalkers should be good at. As a Stalker, being able to dodge a fight and attack my enemies from behind should be my "thing," and ambushes really serve to interfere with that.
By contrast, location-triggered ambushes have been a lot of fun, even when they stack. I remember one particular fight that had I think no less than five TEST ambushes, all stacking on top of each other, all of which I fought and won against with my Stalker. How? Every time I heard a new ambush coming, I moved away from the area and pulled the fight with me. When I was done with one ambush, I'd attack the other and watch for the NPC dialogue for the next one, then move away when I heard it. It was a rewarding, cool fight that actually had me think on my feet and put a fair amount of pressure to both act and react.
Player-targeted ambushes that just make a mockery out of my inherent seem... Cheap.
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I don't want to defend these ideas. I'm well aware some are controversial and others just... Ludicrous. I just wanted to list them. And if you have other ideas, be sure to let me know and I'll add them to the original list with author credits
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I actually kind of like them - then again, I like the challenge of getting the first shot (and kill) charging into a pack of Rikti drones with my Stalker, too. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Player-targeted ambushes that just make a mockery out of my inherent seem... Cheap.
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I'd like to agree with many of these ideas as well as submit a few of my own suggestions:
1. Add "Wounding" to Assassin's Strike- Basically the idea is that 'wounding' would be an effect placed on a target that survived an AS power from hidden and make the remainder of their short existence miserable. Wounding would be a massive debuff to the victim's defense, resistance, recharge, damage, tohit, speed, regen, recovery, and special.
The idea being that after a target takes such massive damage in one instant, they're left in a crippled state, requiring every bit of willpower they have just to try to limp away. This also would add a teaming element for stalkers in tough fights against major AVs and such.
2. Add Bonus Damage for attacking from hide- This is inspired by Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's chain kill mechanic. Basically, upon landing a hit from hidden, you get either three seconds of plus 80-100% damage or three seconds 100% critical chance. The idea being to sort of finish the trifecta of scrappers doing consistent DPS, Brutes building up to higher levels of DPS, and then we would have stalkers able to open up with heavy DPS before normalizing a bit more throughout the rest of the fight.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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Thanks! I've appended your suggestions to the original post and credited them to you.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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You forgot 'change snipes back to snipes instead of aoe aggro buttons'
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I don't think that's plausible as it's a balancing mechanic to stop exploitation. If it's possible, I'd expect stealth powers being the new 'door sit' power in farms.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
*Fix the Hide enemy AI bug: When the team a Stalker is on attacks a spawn, that spawn will not just aggro on players the individual NPCs can see, but actually on the entire team list. What this means is that a Hidden Stalker who has done nothing to reveal his presence will still be attacked if a team-mate causes aggro. This should not work that way. Invisible players should not be valid targets for NPCs until they are spotted.
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| *Fix the Placate bug: If an enemy is suffering from any debuff from the Stalker, when that Stalker uses Placate, that enemy will not lose aggro, just lose the ability to target the Stalker. Once the Placate effect expires, that enemy will chase the Stalker across the map, around corners and to the ends of the Earth. If the enemy is not subject to any debuffs from the Stalker, however, that enemy will forget the Stalker existed, either walking away idly or proceeding to fight another team-member. This means that the Stalker can disengage, rehide or even rest. Considering almost all Stalker attacks come with some sort of lingering debuff, this is highly unlikely and makes powers like Smoke Flash significantly less potent. |
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| *Fix the OTHER Placate bug: When the Placate power is used, the Hidden effect of it is activated almost immediately. What this means is that you are then locked into a power animation for another 1.5 seconds, all the while said hide can be broken without ever giving you a chance to make use of it. Either the Hidden status needs to be moved to the end of the power (and possibly delayed past that), or the Stalker needs to be given a second or two after Placate where Hide cannot be broken by incoming damage. Otherwise, the Hidden status restoration in Placate is useless more often than not. And if that weren't bad enough, the enemy you are placating has a chance to hit you after you placate but before the power animates, breaking your Hidden status before you are able to attack, if you are unlucky enough. |
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| *Fix the "ambush bug:" When a player-targeted ambush spawns, it immediately knows where the Stalker is, and heads over to attack him, making Assassin's Strike and Hide pretty much useless, reducing the Stalker to a somewhat gimped Scrapper. Make a special exception for Stalkers where player-triggered ambushes head for the Stalker's last known position, instead of heading straight for the Stalker, or alternately make ambushes unable to attack stealthed players that they cannot see. We can't attack invisible things ("Target too hard to see"), so can't the AI be made to do the same? |
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| *Up the Stalker hit points cap to just below that of Scrappers: Right now, the Stalker hit points cap is so low that pretty much any set with a max hit points buff will meet and exceed the AT's own cap. The point of both ED and the GDN was to prevent characters from hitting their own caps for the most part, so this seems like a logical change. |
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| *Up Stalker Build Up to at least 100%, more if necessary: Stalkers are intended to be the one-hit killers, focusing all of their damage on those first few attacks and crippling their enemies enough to be finished off more easily. To this effect, their 80% damage buff Build Up just doesn't cut it. It needs to be stronger, if not much stronger. |
I would, however, suggest moving around the melee (and ranged) ToHit buffs. Although a nerf, push down Scrapper and Brute down to the blaster mod of 75%, keep Tanker at 100% and push Stalker up to 130-150%. Also, slightly improve the base accuracy of their attacks too. Basically, Stalkers should be extremely accurate, so much so that they could do what Brutes do for damage slotting (i.e. skip it and not feel harmed by it).
For BU itself, the extra 20% dmg is nothing to cry home about. The hindering part of BU is its duration of 10sec. With the oft better DPS option being thrown out (the likes of Soul Drain, Follow Up and Power Siphon), a similar change that Dual Blades could fit. The Empower combo lasts 10sec for other melees but can be kept up while Stalker empower lasts 20sec because it can't. If I were proposing a change that would aim to help the AT, it'd be to extend BU's duration from 10sec to 15-20sec. This is mainly to help with DPS. But if you're aiming to focus on aiding Burst dmg, I'd say there are better options
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| *Make Hide retain some of its stealth radius when it suppresses: Brute and Scrapper stealth does not suppress. Ever. Blaster and Pool stealth suppresses, but still leaves the character slightly stealthy. When Stalker Hide suppresses, it suppresses completely, making the Stalker highly visible to ALL enemies around. If not full strength, then Hide needs to retain half or a third strength even in combat. Remember - enemies you have aggroed already or others of the same spawn will keep attacking you even when you're stealthed, so this does not give a combat advantage. What it means is you won't be seen by all other spawns in the whole frikkin' room. For an AT that can't really pull very well (no Provoke, pulling suppresses hide and prevents the use of Assassin's Strike) that would be a great help. |
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| *Giver Stalker random criticals a chance to occur from hide, possibly resulting in double criticals: A "double critical" Assassin's Strike would produce a 2.5 base damage plus a 4.5 Assassination critical plus another 2.5 random critical. Most normal powers would simply hit for triple damage instead of double. Considering how rare Hidden criticals are as compared to normal attacks, I don't think adding a chance for a double critical if you're really lucky would upset balance too much, but it would be awesome when it happened. |
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| *Make Hide only suppress when you attack, but not be suppressible when you receive damage (only in PvE): This would allow Stalkers to assassinate enemies with constantly running damage auras (like Spines Wardens), not fear Red CoT Crystals, be able to fight in Caltrops and generally be screwed out of their Hidden criticals far less often. Right now, running away to re-hide for a hidden critical is statistcally pointless as you waste so much time. Considering how rare it is to be hidden beyond that - which is basically just Placate when that's available, it should make Stalkers quite a bit more solid as fighters. |
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| *Make killing enemies, or having enemies to whom the Stalker has done the highest percent damage, cause the Stalker to immediately Hide: Either then make his Hide not suppressible by incoming attacks or give him a leeway of at least two seconds to score another Hidden critical. This should make up for their lower damage mod and lack of AoE. Speaking of which... |
It'd be nice if we got some type of 'killer' buff from defeating foes though...
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| *Up the Stalker melee damage mod to 1.05 or 1.10. Possibly more: 1.05 would be equal to that of Dominator melee and 1.10 would be close to the Stalker damage mod of 1.12. Considering Stalkers are listed as having comparable damage to Stalkers in the new Beta and they seem to be intended to be the melee shock damage dealers, it would make sense for their sustained melee to be better than it is. |
I'm always against giving Stalkers Scrapper melee mods, if only because that's their schtick. That and melee dmg. Instead, critical damage is Stalker's schtick and should be focused on. The more I hear for improvements to Stalkers, the more I think crit dmg should be upped for Stalkers. With the ability to have seperate PvE and PvP numbers, simply changing a 50dmg attack with a 50dmg crit to a 50dmg attack with a 75-100dmg crit is simple number changes. I'd even go so far as to sacrifice the scaling team crits for just plain bigger crits. This scales for AS and any critting power btw.
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*Make Assassin's Strike uninterruptible when not Hidden, or possibly uninterruptible period (in PvE only): Right now, Assassin's Strikes have a base damage of scale 2.5. This is just tangentially less than the 2.62 or Head Splitter. What this means is they're solid attacks which could help Stalkers out in a scrap, but they are useless in a scrap because they're so easy to interrupt. Make them uninterruptible and you give Stalkers an extra tool to make up for taking a power out of his Scrapper-ported attack set. *Make Assassin's Strike animate faster: Let's face it - Snipes and Assassin's Strikes have never been good DPA because they animate so slow and even worse DPS since you can use them so very rarely. Assassin's Strike would not be a very good attack out of hide even if it didn't suppress, and it's only marginally worth the time and risk invested in using it from Hide because of its high damage. Making the power faster (not necessarily TOO much so) would help with that. I'm thinking somewhere between Head Splitter and Total Focus speed. *Alternately, make Assassin's Strike hit harder: Right now Total Focus hits for a damage mod of 3.67, for a critical of around 7.32 scale damage, or actually higher than Assassin's Strike itself. Now, probably for this reason, Total Focus doesn't score a full Critical and Energy Transfer (base 4.5 scale damage) doesn't have critical hits at all, but instead just removes the self-damage on a successful critical. Now I hear that a Street Justice power has the potential to out-damage an Assassin's Strike on a critical hit. If we're this careful of having Assassin's Strike outshined, perhaps it's time to up its damage, and somewhat significantly. Not enough to one-shot AVs, obviously, but enough to do serious harm to an even level boss, and close to one-shot the thing if used with (a possibly stronger) Build Up. *Make Assassin's Strike AoE when out of Hide, or possibly AoE with a critical hit occurring on just the selected target: One big complaint Stalker players always have is that they lack AoE of any kind, having given up an AoE from their ported set to accommodate Assassin's Strike. So make the thing uninterruptible and give it a lower-strength AoE component when used out of hide. Assassin's Blade/Sword/Blades/Claw could cause a Head-Splitter-like narrow cone where you shishkebap multiple foes with a single stab while Assassin's Shock/Blow/Squat/Whatever do an AoE around the target. This doesn't have to deliver full damage, but having SOME AoE to it would be nice, and would give Stalkers back some much-needed AoE, especially on sets like Martial Arts. |
Instead of trying to refit in powers that were dropped, I'd suggest adding features to the sets' current make-up, just like Kinetic Melee has 100% crit with Burst and insta-recharge BU from a hidden Concentrated Strike.
There's too many possibilities to list though. But it's probably easier than reforming whole sets.
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I merely meant to say that enemies placated with debuffs will chase you quite a bit and not lose aggro, exactly as if you never placated them. They will simply lose ability to attack you for a short period of time, and then resume attacking. Placating enemies without said debuffs causes them not only to stop attacking you, but also to lose aggro completely. If you then walk away and hide out of line of sight, they will never come after you even when the Placate wears off.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Not sure if this problem even exists. I've witnessed targets chasing you even after you're unaggroed but never beyond a certain distance from their spawn point (however they'll occasionally try to hit you anyway). Is that the one you need? I'd say removing placate resists from any mob would do the trick.
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There's a marked difference between the behaviour of enemies placated with and without debuffs on them, and I want to see that difference removed, so that debuffs have no effect on the behaviour of placated enemies.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
100% +dmg on BU is an effect of the scrapper's AT mods for melee dmg buffs. Tankers, Brutes, SoA, and Defenders all have a 100% mod for that attribute while Scrappers and Blasters have 125%. I say that's a feature of those ATs.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
For BU itself, the extra 20% dmg is nothing to cry home about. The hindering part of BU is its duration of 10sec. With the oft better DPS option being thrown out (the likes of Soul Drain, Follow Up and Power Siphon), a similar change that Dual Blades could fit. The Empower combo lasts 10sec for other melees but can be kept up while Stalker empower lasts 20sec because it can't. If I were proposing a change that would aim to help the AT, it'd be to extend BU's duration from 10sec to 15-20sec. This is mainly to help with DPS. But if you're aiming to focus on aiding Burst dmg, I'd say there are better options
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Plus, it will help them scrap better, which they currently kind of fall behind in, and yet which they currently end up doing the majority of the time thanks to how limited Hide is.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Can't argue with that. It does remove alot of the need to be situationally aware but since a lot of those instances aren't easily avoidable even with awareness, it'd be killing multiple birds with one stone.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
It'd be nice if we got some type of 'killer' buff from defeating foes though...
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And I actually do think that may be possible. The game already has a system in place to decide whether you get "kill count" credit for a critter you and a player not on your team took down together. I'm not sure what the algorithm behind that is, but if the game can decide whether to reward you with a +1 on your Defeat 30 CoT in Perez Park mission based on how much damage you did to that particular Mage, then it can decide whether to give you a buff based on how much damage you did to that particular enemy.
I'm not sure if that won't cause other people's damage to interfere with Stalker buffs, though. Perhaps just some kind of non-stacking buff every time something dies within 15 feet of the Stalker regardless of who or what killed it? Call it "Blood in the Water" or some such.
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| I guess you meant Scrappers in some of those spots... |
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
I'm always against giving Stalkers Scrapper melee mods, if only because that's their schtick. That and melee dmg. Instead, critical damage is Stalker's schtick and should be focused on. The more I hear for improvements to Stalkers, the more I think crit dmg should be upped for Stalkers. With the ability to have seperate PvE and PvP numbers, simply changing a 50dmg attack with a 50dmg crit to a 50dmg attack with a 75-100dmg crit is simple number changes. I'd even go so far as to sacrifice the scaling team crits for just plain bigger crits. This scales for AS and any critting power btw.
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In fact, I wonder if we can't use some kind of combo mechanic that built up to a certain level, with each level adding a higher chance to score a critical, and a critical clearing that "combo" entirely. What this means is that the longer you fight, the more likely you are to score a critical. Think of it like the Streakbreaker for critical hits. In fact, can we not actually the Streakbreaker itself for that?
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Those are all pretty radical changes though. I doubt any of them would fly. Now I can get behind AS being auto-hit from hide in PvE or some such but any of those really just changes AS into an every day melee tool. AS should be more for utility with great dmg being its boon, not its only redeeming feature.
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Personally, I'm biassed here, in that I hate seeing a power recharged and unused so much of the time, and I'd just like to have more reason to use my Assassin's Strike out of Hide. It doesn't have to be awesome, just as long as it's not a complete waste. A partial waste - like it's not good DPS, it takes too long, it doesn't do enough, those I can deal with. But physically not being able to use it because it keeps getting interrupted? That bites.Quote:
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Instead of trying to refit in powers that were dropped, I'd suggest adding features to the sets' current make-up, just like Kinetic Melee has 100% crit with Burst and insta-recharge BU from a hidden Concentrated Strike.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Oh, and Sam, about the demoralization bug, that's been fixed in beta and is expected to go live with the new issue. So we've already got one problem solved.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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One fix I'd like to see is to have Placate suppress enemy affecting toggles the same way hide does. As things are right now the toggles will break Placate almost immediately. We have to choose whether to run the toggles or have Placate work properly. Especially with Stalkers getting another armor set with such a toggle soon, this could really stand to be fixed. It kind of feels like the change to suppress the toggles while hidden was put in but never fully tested. That or maybe there are tech limitations preventing it from being fixed, I don't know.
Make it so that friendly NPCs can still see you when you're hidden. You already have a -Stealth debuff on you, why should you be denied the ability to at least get a hide crit because the NPC you're escorting is a twit.
Also! Ambushes. One of the most annoying missions for any class with stealth is the "Break up the Destroyer's Meeting" mission from Luke Larson, where a Blast Master spawns every thirty seconds or so just to make your life miserable.
On my Illusion Controller (Who's stealth -does not- suppress), this was a pain.
On a stalker, however... not only does this minion know exactly where you are, it's main attack is an AoE DoT.
And a burning stalker is a visible stalker.
I had the benefit of having Superior Invisibility up. I stayed Invisible the entire mission.
If I were a stalker, I would have put my keyboard through the monitor.
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I know |
Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Oh, and Sam, about the demoralization bug, that's been fixed in beta and is expected to go live with the new issue. So we've already got one problem solved.
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I just wanted to mention it, both to pad out the list and to acknowledge a positive change.Quote:
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Originally Posted by Supernumiphone
One fix I'd like to see is to have Placate suppress enemy affecting toggles the same way hide does. As things are right now the toggles will break Placate almost immediately. We have to choose whether to run the toggles or have Placate work properly. Especially with Stalkers getting another armor set with such a toggle soon, this could really stand to be fixed. It kind of feels like the change to suppress the toggles while hidden was put in but never fully tested. That or maybe there are tech limitations preventing it from being fixed, I don't know.
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Originally Posted by NightErrant
Make it so that friendly NPCs can still see you when you're hidden. You already have a -Stealth debuff on you, why should you be denied the ability to at least get a hide crit because the NPC you're escorting is a twit.
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I agree, it's hideously annoying. I'd really like to see some sort of fix for this that allows us to sacrifice our stealth but keep our ability to score Hidden criticals.
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Originally Posted by NightErrant
Also! Ambushes. One of the most annoying missions for any class with stealth is the "Break up the Destroyer's Meeting" mission from Luke Larson, where a Blast Master spawns every thirty seconds or so just to make your life miserable.
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I'm not really sure what could and indeed should be done about this, but I keep thinking SOMETHING ought to happen.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Put them out of their misery?
| Lists of things we could do for Stalkers |
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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. |
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Why so much hate?|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Put them out of their misery?
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My two main gripes with Stalkers are the 30ft team Crit, and Build up.
both of which have been mentioned already.
Unfortunately ambushes are most certainly one of those systemic problems Castle referred to a while back. As is team agro, which makes it unrealistic that those particular issues could be addressed.
I also strongly believe that Hide being inherent will not solve any of the problems Stalkers face. If anything Assassins Strike is the power that should be made inherent.
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It was a joke. |
Originally Posted by DMystic
Why so much hate?
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I have 2 stalkers myself, and I enjoy playing them.
I was making a joke at the fact that they've been languishing for quite a while now and the attempts at giving them some love have so far been ineffective.
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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. |
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That IS kind of a problem I agree on, though. I'll be the first to admit that Stalkers are far from broken or unplayable. They're actually pretty good in at least a few fields. But at the same time, they've had a whole host of niggling, cumbersome problems and a few odd balance choice, and they've been carrying those around for years. The old-old Stalker buffs made a WORLD of difference and turned them from a joke AT into something well workable, but I always thought they deserved more. Like the Kheldian changes, Stalkers just didn't get enough to make them truly desirable to anyone who can't admit they're really not the best choice for almost anything in the game. They're almost never a BAD choice, mind you, but they have their problems.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I was making a joke at the fact that they've been languishing for quite a while now and the attempts at giving them some love have so far been ineffective.
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I'm actually playing a Stalker pretty much in real time now as I'm typing this, so some of my ideas are born of the things that pass through my head as I play. Like this last one:
Leo suggested making Stalker Build Up last longer. I like it, but I'd suggest the reverse - make Stalker Build Up recharge faster, instead. A Stalker with Placate and Build Up is a scary sight indeed, but that's kind of the problem - a Stalker doesn't really have both of those available for every fight. Right now, I have my Build Up double-slotted for recharge and it's down to about 40-50 seconds recharge, I think. Trouble is that most of my fights only last 20 seconds or so, and I'm left having to leapfrog Build Up from one spawn to the one after the next. Making it faster and allowing me to open every fight with decent burst damage would help greatly. I'll see about appending this to the original post, probably after Leo's.
I also have to wonder if we can't have a random chance that our attacks will just suddenly recharge Build Up, say a 20% or thereabout chance for this to occur from any random, non-hidden Critical or some such. I may be retreading Leo's idea with this one, though. Basically, it seems to me that Stalkers are the one AT which benefits from Build Up the most just because of how focused they are on burst damage. That might be a good direction to go in to improve them a bit without going overboard or redefining the whole AT.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I wouldn't mind seeing Placate have its recharge lowered slightly as well. Right now you can bring it down to 30 seconds which isn't bad, but I think it would be a much more usable tool if it was something like 15-20 seconds. Hell, I would love to see how interesting Stalkers could get with it as low as 5-10 seconds. (Mind you, the duration of the placate should scale downwards accordingly - you should only ever be able to placate one enemy at a time.)
I've always felt that one of the hallmarks of a Stalker should be their ability to manipulate aggro constantly. Not only in order to place yourself back into Hidden status (which is likely why it has its current recharge time; it's pulling double duty), but also just to get mobs off of you and be able to theoretically dance around an entire group.
But the long-ish recharge time, combined with its re-hide effect's tendency to fail due to bad timing, means I usually end up forgetting about it unless there's a boss (or higher) that I need to double crit. A sad, boring existence for one of the AT's unique powers.
Of course, most of my ideas for how to fix Stalkers unfortunately boil down to "don't design them so badly in the first place" such as not giving them copy and pasted Scrapper secondaries. All Stalker secondaries should've been hybrid defense/active mitigation sets like Ninjitsu to begin with...
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I would think you could up the damage mod a little more. Make it more then scrappers or at least equals scrappers damage mod. Scrapper have more hit points so there for they can be more survivable. So it would be reasonable that Stalkers do the same of just a little more damage. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
*Up the Stalker melee damage mod to 1.05 or 1.10. Possibly more: 1.05 would be equal to that of Dominator melee and 1.10 would be close to the Scrapper damage mod of 1.125. Considering Stalkers are listed as having comparable damage to Scrappers in the new Beta and they seem to be intended to be the melee shock damage dealers, it would make sense for their sustained melee to be better than it is. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
*Make Assassin's Strike uninterruptible when not Hidden, or possibly uninterruptible period (in PvE only): Right now, Assassin's Strikes have a base damage of scale 2.5. This is just tangentially less than the 2.62 or Head Splitter. What this means is they're solid attacks which could help Stalkers out in a scrap, but they are useless in a scrap because they're so easy to interrupt. Make them uninterruptible and you give Stalkers an extra tool to make up for taking a power out of his Scrapper-ported attack set.
*Make Assassin's Strike animate faster: Let's face it - Snipes and Assassin's Strikes have never been good DPA because they animate so slow and even worse DPS since you can use them so very rarely. Assassin's Strike would not be a very good attack out of hide even if it didn't suppress, and it's only marginally worth the time and risk invested in using it from Hide because of its high damage. Making the power faster (not necessarily TOO much so) would help with that. I'm thinking somewhere between Head Splitter and Total Focus speed. *Alternately, make Assassin's Strike hit harder: Right now Total Focus hits for a scale damage of 3.67, for a critical of around 7.32 scale damage, or actually higher than Assassin's Strike itself. Now, probably for this reason, Total Focus doesn't score a full Critical and Energy Transfer (base 4.5 scale damage) doesn't have critical hits at all, but instead just removes the self-damage on a successful critical. Now I hear that a Street Justice power has the potential to out-damage an Assassin's Strike on a critical hit. If we're this careful of having Assassin's Strike outshined, perhaps it's time to up its damage, and somewhat significantly. Not enough to one-shot AVs, obviously, but enough to do serious harm to an even level boss, and close to one-shot the thing if used with (a possibly stronger) Build Up. *Make Assassin's Strike AoE when out of Hide, or possibly AoE with a critical hit occurring on just the selected target: One big complaint Stalker players always have is that they lack AoE of any kind, having given up an AoE from their ported set to accommodate Assassin's Strike. So make the thing uninterruptible and give it a lower-strength AoE component when used out of hide. Assassin's Blade/Sword/Blades/Claw could cause a Head-Splitter-like narrow cone where you shishkebap multiple foes with a single stab while Assassin's Shock/Blow/Squat/Whatever do an AoE around the target. This doesn't have to deliver full damage, but having SOME AoE to it would be nice, and would give Stalkers back some much-needed AoE, especially on sets like Martial Arts. |
Like you I hate seeing a power just sitting there and not being able to use it. So the AoE out of hide would be awesome. It gives Stalkers an AoE power, which is one of the big thing people complain about.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
*Make Stalker Hide an Inherent power like Dominator Domination and instead either give them back what their defence sets lack, or alternately give them a "Disappear" power which recovers Hidden status without placating anything and is on a fairly short recharge (30-60 seconds). Alternately, call that power "Escape" and turn it into a cheaper, faster version of Smoke Flash to be used for escaping from a confrontation gone wrong.
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Love all of these ideas! If some of these changes were to happen I would definitely make a new Stalker, most likely more than one!
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
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Yeah, this is a problem I very quickly remember every time I sit down to play my Stalkers. Hidden criticals are awesome, but I get so few chances to use them that I'm not really sure how much they help. In regular spawn-to-spawn action, I tend to get a couple - one Assassin's Strike and one Placate critical, and then more on the next spawn. When I get into a prolonged fight, though... Well, I'm essentially playing a Scrapper. No Placate for long periods of time, no Assassin's Strike practically ever, just scrap scrap scrap with little to no AoE and a lower damage mod.|
Originally Posted by IanTheM1
I wouldn't mind seeing Placate have its recharge lowered slightly as well. Right now you can bring it down to 30 seconds which isn't bad, but I think it would be a much more usable tool if it was something like 15-20 seconds. Hell, I would love to see how interesting Stalkers could get with it as low as 5-10 seconds. (Mind you, the duration of the placate should scale downwards accordingly - you should only ever be able to placate one enemy at a time.)
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I honestly feel that if we want to make Stalkers better, we should let them use their gimmick a lot more.
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Originally Posted by IanTheM1
I've always felt that one of the hallmarks of a Stalker should be their ability to manipulate aggro constantly. Not only in order to place yourself back into Hidden status (which is likely why it has its current recharge time; it's pulling double duty), but also just to get mobs off of you and be able to theoretically dance around an entire group.
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It's getting to the point where I feel it may be best to divorce Placate and Rehide into two separate powers, or at least two separate effects. Placate is a good form of aggro control, and Smoke Flash placating in an AoE range without actually hiding me makes a BIG difference. Even if I'm fighting 15 people, I can smoke them all and then proceed to fight them one at a time. Even the basic Placate is a powerful tool if you manage to snag a particularly dangerous enemy.
It's interesting that a lot of people seem to see Stalkers as a one-trick pony and cite Assassin's Strike as their one trick. Realistically speaking, Stalkers actually have two tricks - placating enemies so they can't attack and achieving Hidden status so they can deal enormous damage. It's just such a shame that both of their actual tricks are so limited in their use when they can be made into the staples of the AT.
Look at it this way - a Brute without Fury is garbage. A Stalker without Hide as Stalkers are right now is worse, but still playable to a similar level, largely because Hide has such a small impact on most real, prolonged fights. And it shouldn't be like this. Stalkers should breath Hide (the Hidden status for Criticals) and live on Placate, not have them on just occasionally so we can still say they exist.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I would love to see Stalker variants that stretch out the range a bit. Snipers for example as a long range option. The Whip powerset would be another great mid-short option. A Shotgun set might be another good option, short ranged but still further than melee.
The way things have been going for my stalker in teams, I could just as soon ditch AS and placate. At the speed of most good teams, there are simply better powers to take.
Solo? AS and placate are usable. Even so...
*shorten the animation time of AS.
*shorten the animation time of Placate
It says something when the AT's signature powers are on the chopping block.
Heck on teams I would replace AS with a leadership toggle and Placate with Provoke. I've been on too many BAFs where people just stand around going, "Um who going to pull AVs?" Now, I can take my "lolstalker" and do that. 
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
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Well, that's kinda Claws/Kinetic's gimmick. Claw's BU recharges in 72sec rather than the standard 90sec and Kinetic has a mechanic that insta-recharges BU with a crit.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Leo suggested making Stalker Build Up last longer. I like it, but I'd suggest the reverse - make Stalker Build Up recharge faster, instead. A Stalker with Placate and Build Up is a scary sight indeed, but that's kind of the problem - a Stalker doesn't really have both of those available for every fight. Right now, I have my Build Up double-slotted for recharge and it's down to about 40-50 seconds recharge, I think. Trouble is that most of my fights only last 20 seconds or so, and I'm left having to leapfrog Build Up from one spawn to the one after the next. Making it faster and allowing me to open every fight with decent burst damage would help greatly. I'll see about appending this to the original post, probably after Leo's.
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Again, rather than completely revamp the AT or sets or whatever, I'd go the route of adding 'moves' to individual sets to give them unique advantages but still in line with the AT's playstyle. What those might be is all a fantasy though, but it's a good step toward making each set unique like the scrapper melee sets tend to feel like vs the afterthought effect stalker melee feels like.
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Originally Posted by Remaugen
I would love to see Stalker variants that stretch out the range a bit. Snipers for example as a long range option. The Whip powerset would be another great mid-short option. A Shotgun set might be another good option, short ranged but still further than melee.
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Fair warning ahead of time: This is a list of things I'd like to see done to help make Stalkers a better, stronger AT, but I don't pretend to want ALL of these changes. Some of them, as you'll note, may come off as ludicrous or overpowered and would alone constitute a significant upgrade to the AT. All of the changes together would be completely broken, obviously, but my goal here is not to forward an upgrade to the AT so much as to look at what could be done for it, and I want the list to be as exhaustive as I can make it.
*Fix the Demoralisation bug: That one's already been fixed in Beta, actually, but I wanted to mention it anyway. For those unaware, that's the bug where the Assassin's Strike's "Demoralisation" effect (i.e. fear and to-hit debuff) only triggered if your assassination target survived, but fizzles if it died. This is being fixed to where EVERY successful assassin's strike will cause Demoralisation, which is a great change.
*Fix the Hide enemy AI bug: When the team a Stalker is on attacks a spawn, that spawn will not just aggro on players the individual NPCs can see, but actually on the entire team list. What this means is that a Hidden Stalker who has done nothing to reveal his presence will still be attacked if a team-mate causes aggro. This should not work that way. Invisible players should not be valid targets for NPCs until they are spotted.
*Fix the Placate bug: If an enemy is suffering from any debuff from the Stalker, when that Stalker uses Placate, that enemy will not lose aggro, just lose the ability to target the Stalker. Once the Placate effect expires, that enemy will chase the Stalker across the map, around corners and to the ends of the Earth. If the enemy is not subject to any debuffs from the Stalker, however, that enemy will forget the Stalker existed, either walking away idly or proceeding to fight another team-member. This means that the Stalker can disengage, rehide or even rest. Considering almost all Stalker attacks come with some sort of lingering debuff, this is highly unlikely and makes powers like Smoke Flash significantly less potent.
*Fix the OTHER Placate bug: When the Placate power is used, the Hidden effect of it is activated almost immediately. What this means is that you are then locked into a power animation for another 1.5 seconds, all the while said hide can be broken without ever giving you a chance to make use of it. Either the Hidden status needs to be moved to the end of the power (and possibly delayed past that), or the Stalker needs to be given a second or two after Placate where Hide cannot be broken by incoming damage. Otherwise, the Hidden status restoration in Placate is useless more often than not. And if that weren't bad enough, the enemy you are placating has a chance to hit you after you placate but before the power animates, breaking your Hidden status before you are able to attack, if you are unlucky enough.
*Fix the "ambush bug:" When a player-targeted ambush spawns, it immediately knows where the Stalker is, and heads over to attack him, making Assassin's Strike and Hide pretty much useless, reducing the Stalker to a somewhat gimped Scrapper. Make a special exception for Stalkers where player-triggered ambushes head for the Stalker's last known position, instead of heading straight for the Stalker, or alternately make ambushes unable to attack stealthed players that they cannot see. We can't attack invisible things ("Target too hard to see"), so can't the AI be made to do the same?
*Up the Stalker hit points cap to just below that of Scrappers: Right now, the Stalker hit points cap is so low that pretty much any set with a max hit points buff will meet and exceed the AT's own cap. The point of both ED and the GDN was to prevent characters from hitting their own caps for the most part, so this seems like a logical change.
*Up Stalker Build Up to at least 100%, more if necessary: Stalkers are intended to be the one-hit killers, focusing all of their damage on those first few attacks and crippling their enemies enough to be finished off more easily. To this effect, their 80% damage buff Build Up just doesn't cut it. It needs to be stronger, if not much stronger.
*Make Hide retain some of its stealth radius when it suppresses: Brute and Scrapper stealth does not suppress. Ever. Blaster and Pool stealth suppresses, but still leaves the character slightly stealthy. When Stalker Hide suppresses, it suppresses completely, making the Stalker highly visible to ALL enemies around. If not full strength, then Hide needs to retain half or a third strength even in combat. Remember - enemies you have aggroed already or others of the same spawn will keep attacking you even when you're stealthed, so this does not give a combat advantage. What it means is you won't be seen by all other spawns in the whole frikkin' room. For an AT that can't really pull very well (no Provoke, pulling suppresses hide and prevents the use of Assassin's Strike) that would be a great help.
*Giver Stalker random criticals a chance to occur from hide, possibly resulting in double criticals: A "double critical" Assassin's Strike would produce a 2.5 base damage plus a 4.5 Assassination critical plus another 2.5 random critical. Most normal powers would simply hit for triple damage instead of double. Considering how rare Hidden criticals are as compared to normal attacks, I don't think adding a chance for a double critical if you're really lucky would upset balance too much, but it would be awesome when it happened.
*Make Hide only suppress when you attack, but not be suppressible when you receive damage (only in PvE): This would allow Stalkers to assassinate enemies with constantly running damage auras (like Spines Wardens), not fear Red CoT Crystals, be able to fight in Caltrops and generally be screwed out of their Hidden criticals far less often. Right now, running away to re-hide for a hidden critical is statistcally pointless as you waste so much time. Considering how rare it is to be hidden beyond that - which is basically just Placate when that's available, it should make Stalkers quite a bit more solid as fighters.
*Make killing enemies, or having enemies to whom the Stalker has done the highest percent damage, cause the Stalker to immediately Hide: Either then make his Hide not suppressible by incoming attacks or give him a leeway of at least two seconds to score another Hidden critical. This should make up for their lower damage mod and lack of AoE. Speaking of which...
*Up the Stalker melee damage mod to 1.05 or 1.10. Possibly more: 1.05 would be equal to that of Dominator melee and 1.10 would be close to the Scrapper damage mod of 1.125. Considering Stalkers are listed as having comparable damage to Scrappers in the new Beta and they seem to be intended to be the melee shock damage dealers, it would make sense for their sustained melee to be better than it is.
*Make Assassin's Strike uninterruptible when not Hidden, or possibly uninterruptible period (in PvE only): Right now, Assassin's Strikes have a base damage of scale 2.5. This is just tangentially less than the 2.62 or Head Splitter. What this means is they're solid attacks which could help Stalkers out in a scrap, but they are useless in a scrap because they're so easy to interrupt. Make them uninterruptible and you give Stalkers an extra tool to make up for taking a power out of his Scrapper-ported attack set.
*Make Assassin's Strike animate faster: Let's face it - Snipes and Assassin's Strikes have never been good DPA because they animate so slow and even worse DPS since you can use them so very rarely. Assassin's Strike would not be a very good attack out of hide even if it didn't suppress, and it's only marginally worth the time and risk invested in using it from Hide because of its high damage. Making the power faster (not necessarily TOO much so) would help with that. I'm thinking somewhere between Head Splitter and Total Focus speed.
*Alternately, make Assassin's Strike hit harder: Right now Total Focus hits for a scale damage of 3.67, for a critical of around 7.32 scale damage, or actually higher than Assassin's Strike itself. Now, probably for this reason, Total Focus doesn't score a full Critical and Energy Transfer (base 4.5 scale damage) doesn't have critical hits at all, but instead just removes the self-damage on a successful critical. Now I hear that a Street Justice power has the potential to out-damage an Assassin's Strike on a critical hit. If we're this careful of having Assassin's Strike outshined, perhaps it's time to up its damage, and somewhat significantly. Not enough to one-shot AVs, obviously, but enough to do serious harm to an even level boss, and close to one-shot the thing if used with (a possibly stronger) Build Up.
*Make Assassin's Strike AoE when out of Hide, or possibly AoE with a critical hit occurring on just the selected target: One big complaint Stalker players always have is that they lack AoE of any kind, having given up an AoE from their ported set to accommodate Assassin's Strike. So make the thing uninterruptible and give it a lower-strength AoE component when used out of hide. Assassin's Blade/Sword/Blades/Claw could cause a Head-Splitter-like narrow cone where you shishkebap multiple foes with a single stab while Assassin's Shock/Blow/Squat/Whatever do an AoE around the target. This doesn't have to deliver full damage, but having SOME AoE to it would be nice, and would give Stalkers back some much-needed AoE, especially on sets like Martial Arts.
*Make Stalker Hide an Inherent power like Dominator Domination and instead either give them back what their defence sets lack, or alternately give them a "Disappear" power which recovers Hidden status without placating anything and is on a fairly short recharge (30-60 seconds). Alternately, call that power "Escape" and turn it into a cheaper, faster version of Smoke Flash to be used for escaping from a confrontation gone wrong.
*Make Build Up recharge faster: Similar to Leo's idea below, but in the opposite direction, let's improve Build Up uptime by making it recharge faster. Considering how huge of a benefit Stalkers draw from Build Up - more so than any other AT I've played - it's a bit irritating to be faced with just not having the power recharged so very often, and that's with recharge slotting. So, what if we made Build Up recharge faster for Stalkers and Stalkers only, such that they had a reasonable chance to have the power available at least once for every fight. If I had to eyeball a time, I'd say 60s, so that we can sync Placate and Build Up more easily without having to let one or the other sit unused.
*Give every out-of-Hide critical a chance to recharge Build Up: This is sort of Leo's idea again, but I'd suggest giving the Stalker, say, a 20% chance for Build Up to recharge every time the Stalker scores an out-of-Hide random critical. This should both make Stalkers feel less "wrong" for straight-up scrapping and it should also make said scrapping feel a like a little less of a damage step down if we could have Build Up available more often to help with dealing damage.
*Make Stalker AoE attacks score guaranteed Hidden criticals like single-target ones or give them a higher chance to score one: It's a well-known fact that Stalkers have somewhat lacklustre AoE potential. So why not up their AoE potential by giving them better chance to score Hidden criticals with AoE attacks. That should help everyone aside from, what? Martial Arts and Energy Melee? Dark Melee, maybe? Moreover, it would make using powers like Head Splitter and Thunder Strike a much better choice as a Hidden attack, and it might help Spines get their heavy hitter to become a cone once more. A lot of Scrapper sets were built with cone heavy hitters, it seems, and when these got ported to Stalkers, they effectively lost their heavy hitters since those have a low chance to actually score a Hidden critical.
*When using an AoE from hide, always guarantee a Hidden critical against the one target that the attack is aimed at: This should allow us to still use our heaviest-hitting powers like Head Splitter from Hide and score bigger Hidden criticals for more shock damage. If this is even possible, it should give Stalkers more tools to use from Hide without unballancing their AoE situation much.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Remember - all of these changes all at once WOULD be too much, but at least SOME of them in SOME combination ought to be decent.
*edit*
And now for a few poster contributions:
AzureSkyCiel
*Add "Wounding" to Assassin's Strike: Basically the idea is that 'wounding' would be an effect placed on a target that survived an AS power from hidden and make the remainder of their short existence miserable. Wounding would be a massive debuff to the victim's defense, resistance, recharge, damage, tohit, speed, regen, recovery, and special.
The idea being that after a target takes such massive damage in one instant, they're left in a crippled state, requiring every bit of willpower they have just to try to limp away. This also would add a teaming element for stalkers in tough fights against major AVs and such.
AzureSkyCiel
*Add Bonus Damage for attacking from hide: This is inspired by Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's chain kill mechanic. Basically, upon landing a hit from hidden, you get either three seconds of plus 80-100% damage or three seconds 100% critical chance. The idea being to sort of finish the trifecta of scrappers doing consistent DPS, Brutes building up to higher levels of DPS, and then we would have stalkers able to open up with heavy DPS before normalizing a bit more throughout the rest of the fight.
Leo_G
For BU itself, the extra 20% dmg is nothing to cry home about. The hindering part of BU is its duration of 10sec. With the oft better DPS option being thrown out (the likes of Soul Drain, Follow Up and Power Siphon), a similar change that Dual Blades could fit. The Empower combo lasts 10sec for other melees but can be kept up while Stalker empower lasts 20sec because it can't. If I were proposing a change that would aim to help the AT, it'd be to extend BU's duration from 10sec to 15-20sec. This is mainly to help with DPS. But if you're aiming to focus on aiding Burst dmg, I'd say there are better options.
Supernumiphone
One fix I'd like to see is to have Placate suppress enemy affecting toggles the same way hide does. As things are right now the toggles will break Placate almost immediately. We have to choose whether to run the toggles or have Placate work properly. Especially with Stalkers getting another armor set with such a toggle soon, this could really stand to be fixed. It kind of feels like the change to suppress the toggles while hidden was put in but never fully tested. That or maybe there are tech limitations preventing it from being fixed, I don't know.
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I don't believe this! I got logged out of the forums BETWEEN EDITS! I didn't even reload the frikkin' page!