Unanswered Pummit Questions

We are on the same page then!

I don't think it's just the "burst" damage. I think Stalker should do better burst damage while doing "very similar" sustained ST dps since Brute/Scrapper have better aoe damage and they survive better. :P

The new change looks good.

By the way, some people feel Placate may be lacking with the new change. Is there any plan on changing/improving Placate? Placate + AS suddenly becomes less desirable. I rarely use Placate + AS because I can't set up AS if I am running offensive toggles (Dark Armor, Energy Aura and Ice Armor). I have to de-toggle first and then Placate + AS. I mostly just hit Placate + whatever since I can get an attack off before I get interrupt.

I think Placate activates a bit too long but it's just me. I never like using Placate + AS but I do use Placate + aoe.

As a player who has leveled so many Stalkers to 50, I can tell you that I do not want Placate being AoE.

Why? Because when I team with a squishy or two, I want to be the main meatshield. I cannot grab as much aggro as a Brute/Tanker but the last thing I want to do is to dump all the aggro to other squishies just because I want to score a critical with Placate. In fact, when we are fighting AVs or bosses, I don't even use Placate at all because I am afraid they go after the squishes. I know I've "helped" kill my teammates a few times using Placate.

Placate is a very tricky power...

That's actually more or less what they were supposed to be from the start as I understand it, so what you're thinking and what I remember from CoV beta seem to be roughly in sync.

But here's the rub: given how at this point recharge is basically the playerbase's prison girlfriend at this point, do you believe its possible to give anything, stalker or otherwise, better burst without simultaneously giving them better sustained damage without using stronger mechanical trickery than what we're using now for stalkers?

Also, allowing assassin's strike better usage out of hide is much more of a sustained damage buff than a burst damage buff. That's fine, but does that mean you're at least roughly happy with the burst damage of stalkers at this point and are now looking to smooth over the rough spots elsewhere, or there's still more burst damage refinement coming in the future?

When I think burst damage, particularly burst damage as a form of mitigation, I think this: if A and B can both kill ten targets in sixty seconds, but while A kills one target every six seconds B kills the first five in 10 seconds and the last five in 50 seconds, B has a burst advantage but no offensive advantage. They both kill at the same speed overall, but B ends up taking a lot less damage than A. The tools I'm seeing aren't frontloading tools that compensate for lower mitigation, they are looking more like straight up offensive buffs.

I have often wondered if the best way to give stalkers better burst is to simply give them reverse fury. They start at maximum, and as they attack it decays. So at the start of the fight they have maximum damage, but the longer the fight lasts the lower their damage becomes. When the fight ends, they recover that advantage. By being less "binary" you get more of the feel of "building it up" and then "using" the burst advantage. Its like a frontload meter you spend by attacking.

And to make sure it doesn't get ludicrously high for soloers but is high enough when in teams, just make the fury meter scale a scaling buff like against all odds. So a stalker that enters a three minion group with full meter gets like a +50% damage buff to start, while a stalker that enters a twelve minion group with full meter gets like a +150% damage buff to start. As they attack, the meter drops from 1.0 to 0.0, dropping the buff accordingly. When they aren't attacking, the meter rises again. You could even make things like Placate add points to the meter (it doesn't have to reset to full, it could add 0.5 to the meter, or whatever). How fast the meter decays would determine how focused the frontloaded burst damage buff would be.

That to me sounds like a burst damage tool, and it wouldn't be difficult to add in theory, although it would take some time. The question is is it a reasonable request given the intended target for stalkers?

This sounds cool too!

I think the dev wants to make Assassin Strike better because that's one attack that many people have trouble liking it. You usually use it at the beginning and that's it. Hell, sometimes you don't even get to use it in the beginning if you get interrupted or the setup time is not worth it.

I wonder what Synapse thinks of your idea.

The "reverse fury" sounds very good. The hardest part is to figure out what timer should be used to reset that bar and making Placate to reduce decay sounds like an excellent idea!

The lower hit points is what makes them weaker. Of course with the right set, this becomes less of a problem when built with IOs in mind. But then, Blasters have this benefit as well.

The increase in max HP cap will only help a few sets out when it comes to Stalkers...Ice Armor, Regeneration and WP.

All other sets are likely to hit just under 1700 hit points if they have all the +HP Accolades and squeeze in as many +HP bonuses as they can without gimping their build, basically they won't have a bunch of easily obtainable bonuses go to complete waist.

While I find that an interresting idea, I do have a question.

Wouldn't making Assassin's Strike a Superior Damage attack while in the unhidden state with a fast animation attack still be a burst damage option while still increasing their DPS?

Yeah, I really want Assassin Strike to be better, faster and more efficient. I mean that attack is a replacement of many precious pbaoe.

With the new change, Assassin Strike's burst damage can be used more frequently and efficiently on different targets, rather than just the first one or two targets.

When there was the last round of proliferation, the Doms were left out and told they were getting something special.

Players heard: "Brand new powerset."

Devs meant: "Brand new powerset."

See the difference? No? Let me explain...

When the Devs can't do a straight proliferation, but have to change animations and powers and alter other powersets to accommodate a 'proliferated' set, well, that's as much work as creating a brand new powerset around a brand new theme (e.g., Poodle Control). For them, if it's as much work as a brand new powerset, then it's a brand new powerset, and thus, 'special.' Dark Control has new animations, new power effects, and forced a rework of Dark Miasma for Controllers. That's not a straight proliferation in their eyes. That's work.

It's not 'Poodle Control' special like players imagined. Thus, the difference in perception.

This game scales difficulty with more players on the team (or you can set it harder if you want) so Stalker's need to eliminate that "one bad guy" gets way tougher with more players. And in all seriousness, getting rid of that "one" bad guy isn't that big of a deal anymore because most ATs can get rid of that one bad guy with a typical build up or aim.

If the one bad guy is an AV or GM, then Stalker contributes even less than other melee ATs (Tanker can tank 4x better than Stalker, Brute can tank while dealing great damage and Scrapper just plain does more damage with a bit better survival).

The relative lack of AOE isn't equal for all sets.

KM lost a tageted range cone that I personally dont see many use and it's pretty much told to be skipped by people ont he forums.

ELM lost an AOE Stun power.

StJ lost no AOE.

Dual Blades lost the PBAOE attack that many say is weaker and from a damage standpoint tend to say pick 1K Cuts over Typhoon's Edge.

Spines lost it's damage aura, which is nice to have and would add in a bit more damage, but they kept it's other 3 AOEs.

Admittedlly I'd have prefere to have the PBAOE in certain sets over some of the ST attacks that I always skip, but the relative lack of AOE seems to be more of "I picked the set without AOE" over actual "relative lack of AOE"

While I am not against any new sets for Dominator, I had a much high hope for something that is much different from Dark Control. I was guessing Whip Assault/Control.

Yes, they did add new stuff in Dark Control which is great. It's just that when we think of Dark Control and Dark Assault, we didn't think it would take over 4-5 months to make.

Some of us had much higher expectation since we couldn't understand why it would take that long to give something to Dominator while other ATs got several new sets. And the reason given by Positron is that the new sets are going to be "special" and "exciting". Dark Control and Assault sound more like "proliferated sets" than a brand new, fresh idea set.

The degree of expectation is different for sure. And I still don't know if one of the Darks is a "cash set" or both are free. I would imagine they would create something "very special" as a "cash item" and that's what's taking so long.

At any rate, it's nice to hear some plans for Dominator because by the time those sets are ready, it's probably several months away since issue 21.

This is pretty much what I always wanted it to do--knockback and/or repel toward a central point. I don't think the game currently has a mechanic to support that, but it would be a lovely thing, not just for Black Hole, but for some of the other cage powers and possibly new powersets as well.

I suspect the devs would be reluctant to load the effect with serious damage, however. As an alternative, I would suggest a set of stacking debuff auras on the sphere pseudopet--ideally Speed, Recharge, Damage Resist, and Knockback protection. The debuffs represent time dilation (you slow down as you approach the event horizon), lensing (the sphere is pulling attacks in toward the target, making them hit harder), and the gradient of the power's "pull". The multiple auras are different sizes--a target right next to the sphere is affected by all of them, while those farther away are less affected.

I would think that you could manifest a pseudopet, then manifest several other pseudopets around it in a circle, set not to clip with anything. The have all of those surrounding pets fire very narrow cone smashing attacks with kb toward the central pet.

I've suggested almost exactly this for a while (primarily for when speaking about Dimension Shift from Gravity, turning it into a Gravity Well), as I think many others have. The only response anyone seems to have is "the tech for making this happen doesn't exist."

No, and no. Intangibility needs to simply go away entirely. This includes Dimension Shift, Blackhole, and probably powers like Sonic Cage and Detention Field. The amount of times enemy intangibility is useful to a player is far overshadowed by the times they're not.

Knockback is fine for solo play and obnoxious in a team environment. Back to Gravity, one of the things that commonly comes up for "fixing" that set is removing the Knockback from Wormhole, where I simply feel stunning before teleport is probably all it needs. The idea for a Knockback toward a certain point removes the random element, which is something I wouldn't want to see reintroduced when the power ends.

In the end, I think it's all moot. Black Hole has come up several times in this discussion and there's not been one hint that anyone at Paragon has any intention of doing anything with these powers. I don't know how I feel about the removal of Fearsome Stare from Dark Miasma, but I at least thought they'd ditch Black Hole and leave Petrifying Gaze in with the advent of sets like Time Manipulation.

That's not a stalkers job, though. Conceptually at least. I know there are teams that form without tanks/brutes/scrappers/normalmeatshields but the idea is for a class to perform their primary function as best as possible, not substitute for any given missing class type. In any case, I was looking at the concept of an AoE placate from a purely defensive standpoint. What good is placate if you use it and immediately get hit by another random mob member? IMO, Placate should be... conceptually... the exact opposite of Taunt... because that's what Stalkers should be. They *hide* to avoid damage because they can't take it as well as other characters.

I really don't like the concept of a Stalker just being a slightly weaker Scrapper. I haven't leveled a Stalker to 50 yet, but it just seems... I don't know... I'm not sure I like the 'Hide' status being only a way to gain extra damage on a team. Maybe if Placate causes the targeted enemy to be hit with a fear status or.. perhaps gives them a unique status where they stand there swinging away at the air because they can't find you. Of course they won't actually be attacking because we want them to hit nothing... It will, more than likely, have to be just an animation. Functionally I suppose it could be similar to Fear, now that I think about it. The point being that they're so freaked out by not being able to find you that it keeps them from attacking anyone else for a few seconds.

In my opinion, not in this context. Stalkers are giving up defensive mitigation (aka "survivability" according to Synapse) to get "burst." For that trade to make sense, the burst itself has to partially compensate for the lower mitigation. Which basically means the burst has to eliminate enemies. Eliminating enemies randomly throughout the fight makes your damage more jumpy and unpredictable, but for the burstiness to be a genuine frontload, it has to happen at the start of the fight. If it happens in the middle or at the end, its not functioning effectively as a substitute for mitigation.

Basically, increasing AS utility while not hidden is really making it a sustained damage tool. It increases overall DPS, but doesn't really provide an option to frontload offense and kill speed to the start of the fight. Adding criticals all over the place makes damage more "spiky" but not more "frontloaded." In fact, since the Assassin's focus stacks, that benefit is actually more of a *backloaded* benefit rather than a frontloaded one. You're more likely to get criticals *later* in the fight rather than earlier, specifically because it stacks.

Yes, and Street Justice was created just for scrappers, but the other melee ATs could have it too since it was there anyway.

I think you're losing perspective a little with your martyr complex.

I'm mainly a corrupter, dominater and controller player, so I see where you're coming from with the abundance of melee sets, but some of the things you've said in this thread are just so skewed towards your perspective that you're almost making stuff up.

In this game, attacks perform tohit rolls against defense, and only if the attack hits does any of the damage components strike the target. There is no such thing as damage that ignores defense: its not that it can't be done, its that that sentence literally does not parse into anything meaningful in this game.

If you mean is it possible for an attack to "ignore" some defense, that is possible: tohit buffs mechanically do that. However, tohit buffs affect an entire character; there is currently no way to give a single attack a tohit advantage separate from all other attacks. An individual attack can have heightened accuracy, but that does not mechanically do what you're asking about. There is a mechanical trick that would allow assassin's strike to essentially have heightened tohit using special procedural clauses, but my guess is the devs are not likely to resort to that unless there was a really good reason to do so.

Alternatively, it is possible for a damage effect within an attack to "ignore" resistance, unresistable damage will do that. The devs are extremely reluctant to give us unresistable damage, because it can break the way other things are designed in terms of their heightened resistance.

Masterminds would like to have a word with you... also having unique sets is something that the devs are trying really hard to NOT do, and I agree with them. Making a set for one AT is a tough call. It makes more financial sense to make it for as many ATs as possible always.

Dominators got a design pass not that long ago; among other things their damage was increased substantially to make them offensively balanced archetypes. I could argue that the archetype that is most in need of a balance pass is Blasters. Blasters have been waiting for a secondary powerset design pass for longer than Dominators have existed. In fact, Dominators and Scrappers have a higher melee damage modifier than Blasters do, which is nonsensical.

If I had to rank which archetypes deserved the most attention overall, the list would be:

Peacebringers
Blasters
Stalkers
Everybody else.

The only reason I put PBs ahead of Blasters is just because the disparity between PBs and WSs is ludicrous, and because I don't think Kheldians get enough special benefits for being quantum-bait.

I'd love it if they made it an anti-radial KB power!