If you could put an end to "Lol Stalkers" what would you do?

Just wanted to ask what would be your fix for stalkers, excluding all standard code rants, sky is the limit on this one. I would give stalkers the real build up scrappers and blasters get. Move their damage mode to 1.30 for melee and have blasters to match it. I would return the aoes to all the sets that had them removed. Move AS and hide to be inherent. Fill in any secondary powers that went missing. Then revert out the hp buff we got since it does not really do much for us anyways. Make hide come back in 3 seconds, remove the interrupt from AS. Now stalkers are fixed.

1. For MA, EM, Ninja, Broadsword, and Claw, take out one of the tier 1 or 2 attacks and replace it with Pbaoe that was taken out.

2. Re-hide timer drops from 8s to 6s.

3. Team-critical range matches Cosmic Balance range, which is large.

4. Assassin Strike is auto-hit in pve from Hidden.

5. Assassin Strike activation time is reduced to 3s with 1s interruptable.

6. I don't want Stalker's brawl index to increase but I would like our natural critical rate increases from 10% to 15%. Stalker needs to solo better and handles REAL THREATS (AV, Giants, Hero) better.

Done.

1. Assassin Strike becomes an Inherent Power. 1 Power dropped from Primary Powerset(s) to make room for Assassin Strike is restored to each Powerset.

2. Hide becomes an Inherent Power. 1 Power dropped from Secondary Powerset(s) to make room for Hide is restored to each Powerset.

3. Change Stalker Criticals. When NOT Hidden, a Critical Hit does NOT do double damage! Instead, the Critical Hit will Placate (all) affected Target(s) for 3 seconds AND instantly return the Stalker to Hidden state. This makes the NEXT attack the Stalker does an automatic Critical Hit (for double damage) from Hidden status.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I'd boost single target damage.

I'd up the base damage of single target attacks, probably on a set-by-set basis, giving bigger bonuses to sets without any area damage.
I was going to say I'd up the brawl index, but my experience is mostly with Martial Arts and Energy Melee, so I dont have a feel for what Stalker area attacks can do.

BU + Assassin's Strike should be able to take out any reasonable leiutenant (say up to +2), and reduce a reasonable boss's health below half.

I'd probably lower the interrupt time and animation time fo Assassin's Strike too.

I played my 50 MA/SR Stalker on a tips team the other day, and felt very useless. Getting into position and taking down the worse threat with AS was not fast enough, the team were blasting everything by then. I didn't feel like I was taking down bosses much faster than anyone else, despite devoting everything in my build to single target damage.

I fele the developers are overly cautious about single target damage.
Soloing through a mission consisting mostly of single lieutenants without risk is already possible for anyone with a control power. Assassin's Strike level of damage is still negligible against real hard targets like AVs. Taking down a single boss quickly is equivalent to ten minions in XP< which area effect characters can do effortlessly.

1. AS Inherent, unlocked at Level 6, missing attack restored to powersets.

2. Hide Inherent, unlocked at Level 1, missing power restored to powersets.

3. Hide Cooldown altered/lowered, mebbe timing off of Attacks made only? Make it so ducking behind a corner is just as viable as Scrapping it out.

4. Placate fixed to actually work, all the time, including suppressing offensive toggles. Perhaps a double pulse of Placate at target?

5. Stalker HP reduced, or Stalker +HP powers adjusted to not lose 2/3rds to 4/5ths of benefits.

6. Critical Bonus increased to map-range, vice 30' radius.

All I can think of right now.

I like Redlynne's idea for "critical placate".

I would scrap the AT entirely and replace it with a melee/support AT with similar mechanics; hide, AS and placate remain, but the secondary would be a new kind of powerset that merged defenses and debuffs, similar to how Dominator Assault powersets merge melee and ranged attacks.

Hide would be an inherent.

The secondaries that immediately come to mind are:

Dark Miasma/Armor

Poison/Regeneration

Storm/Electric Armor

Radiation/Energy Aura

Kinetics/Super Reflexes

Pain/Willpower (with fewer heals and more debuffs)

I would rather have a higher HP cap like scrappers but wouldn't change the powers to much

To echo: make our inherents inherent. Make criticals return us to hide. Give us a higher hp cap or replace +hp powers with something useful.

Give a minor bump to the HP Cap

Put their melee modifier to 1.125

Auto-fill of their k-meter with a non-hidden crit.

I wouldn't touch the powers since I think the powers are fine as they are although changing the order as some of you have pointed out would be nice. Having "Hide" become inherent would be ideal and I would also increase the defense of the power to be base 7.5%. I would also raise their base health just a tad.

Otherwise I think Stalkers are fine as they are.

I did like hte idea of melee buff/debuffers. that's cool I'd totally play something like that. As an alternative, I'm not sure how the numbers would play out, but if stalkers are supposed to be melee blasters and top single-target damage, then run this theory to it's logical extreme. Also, don't make stalkers AS machines, that is one part of the stalker, but not the whole thing.

I agree on rolling back the HP buff.

reduce the mez protection in all secondaries slightly.

ensure all secondaries have a hole.

Rebalance AS into a crashless nuke. Up the damage so that we can kill +0 lieutenants with AS and no buildup needed. AS + buildup = dead -1 boss in 1 hit. Devs obviously intend AS to be used in combat and out of hide. But the current implementation doesn't encourage this. Increase base recharge by 2+ seconds, remove or massively reduce the interrupt, reduce activation time, and increase damage as above. This is our melee nuke. It should function like one. Blasters get ranged nukes that can wipe whole spawns with a single shot. We should be able to kill a boss with a single shot. I do NOT like most of the suggestions about tagging on debuffs etc to AS. The hit itself should kill. Put crippling debuffs on other attacks.

Personally, I'd also like it to accept sniper sets. I am not saying let it be a ranged attack or use the ranged damage scalar etc. I am saying accept sniper sets, nothing more nothing less. And I also would like them to allow the range bonus to work not be wasted. This will help with getting it off against a moving target.

Melee damage scaled up on nearly all sets or attack speed upped (with limited reduction in damage) so that we can chew through groups via single-target attacks without it feeling like a damn chore. Dark and KM are the only ones I've played that have this feel right now. Claws and nin are close except for the prevalence of -lethal resists around every corner.

If we're making AS and hide inherent, make both available at really low levels (1-4 for AS).

Make all of our hides unsupressed just like /ea and /dark for brutes and scrappers get.

screw the teaming mechanic. Let all attacks have a chance to reset the hide state rather than a higher crit chance directly.

Drop activation time of placate by .25 seconds, drop base recharge by 1 sec.

Give us full 100% buildup.

Redo powers like dull pain and hoarfrost so we get full benefit when slotted, and that means giving us something positive in exchange for the lower HP value. Redo combos on dual blades to remove AS from the chain unless it is a finisher. Make AS a finisher in Street Justice.

Let us keep our AoE attacks our cones etc, but reduce the max targets (if scrappers get 10, give us 5, if they get 5, give us 3) and/or range instead. I'm looking at you eviscerate, I want my cone back dagnabit!

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I think with faster attacks, AS rebalanced as a crashless nuke, and generally redone sets to support their intent, we would be the kinds of single target damage, and would be far enough ahead that it is worth giving up the AoE.

But I kind of like the idea of melee debuffers/buffers better. =)

I'd go for scaling AS.

I do not think sweeping changes are needed. Outside of outlier powersets in brutes and scrappers, and using the placate and AS mechanic, I think stalkers DPS versus single targets is just fine. The mechanic, however, is somewhat clunky, and does need to be tweaked. AoE needs to be addressed for many of the sets (lets face it Dark, Electric and Street Justice still have as much AoE as the scrapper/brute versions)

1. Make AS (outside of PvP) a normal attack power, 1.07 sec cast time, ditch the interrupt time.

2. Make AS a slottable inherent (unlocks at 6). Return the sacrificed AoE, or with StJ, give me back my nut-cracker.

3. Fix the issue causing some toggles to mess up the placate mechanic.

4. If the above changes do not make stalker DPS slightly above scrapper and brute (and I suspect it would, because nobody debates that stalker ST damage is just fine for the first 10 seconds of the fight) an increase of the damage scalar to 1.125 would certainly finish the fixes.

It is more of a problem with fixing the mechanic in place than changing everything. By allowing AS to easily be usable mid-fight, from hide with placate. ST damage would be sustainable while keeping the mechanic in place that separates stalkers from scrappers.

I think its silly to think the devs read this forum.

I think the easiest way to end the LOLSTALKER issue in the game is to port ninjitsu to scrappers and eliminate the last few stalker holdouts.

They are already the rarest AT in the game post 20, once the Ninjitsu hold outs reroll to scrappers you won't read LOLSTALKER anymore.

My response is the most realistic in terms of actually happening.

I'd flush 'melee blasters,' re-market the AT as 'City of Arkham,' and go from there.

I'd like to propose a different way of ending the Lol Stalkers arguement. It involves a rethink of what a stalkers greatest ability is.

The greatest ability of Stalkers is not AS but their Hide. Hide lets a Stalker go almost anywhere at will. You can stand behind (or under) something as tough as a GM and they'll never see you until you do something offensive. You can decide what fights you want to get into and (combined with placate) the speed of the engagement.

As part of a group, Stalkers are not just 'gimped scrappers'. They should not be in the center of the fight but working around the edges picking off the weak and wounded. If a stalker has to hold the line in place of a scrapper or tank, you can (and I've seen it done brilliantly in the past) but you might want to suggest a more 'hit and run' style for your group.

I dont think Stalkers need big changes, just people need to rethink how they are meant to be used.