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Originally Posted by EvilRyu
No he isnt a source, i think he is one of the best devs because he responds to pms. I dont know anything about staff weapons outside of seeing the youtube video. If they all responded like he does we would not have to wait like 16+ issues to get something addressed
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I'm trying to have fun here but you keep killing my joy!
Stop AS'ing my joy man!
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See? I would have realized that had I made your account and posted on it. So that just solidifies our stories! We got our alibi, see? |
Originally Posted by Pyro_Beetle
Lol, yes and I am sure that people could tell that by the fact that my join date is almost a year ahead of yours. I post only sporadically, and for the most part spend my time in the game rather than on the boards.
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It's a straight up buff from where I'm sitting.
I've never been overly concerned about the lack of AoE. If I want to deal AoE damage I either choose a primary that has it or a different AT.
I also don't worry about the lack of AoE preventing me from getting on teams, because frankly, if someone denies me a team because I don't have enough AoE, chances are I wouldn't enjoy playing with them anyway.
AS being useful outside of Hide is a nice change. The question I have about that is: WIll Street Justice's AS retain it's 2 combo point building aspect out of Hide? It's relevant to me because StJ/Nin is the only stalker I'm actively playing at the moment.
More HP is something I've been wanting for a while, and it's going to end up right about where I suggested/guessed it should be.
The end result remains to be seen, but I'm happy with what I've heard so far.
I still think stalker and scrapper resistance caps should be increased to 80%, but that's a topic for another thread I think, since it would apply to both ATs.
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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. |
Man I hope these changes happen. I may actually get a Stalker out of the 20s then 
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Oh! No wonder I was confused because I see the new incarnate abilities but I don't see the new trials and I thought that's the big part of 21.5 and I also didn't see Titan Weapon for sale (I found out it's coming out on Dec 6?).
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Originally Posted by Agent White
For the most part, 21.5 is live. The new iTrial is still waiting to get turned on though as they're still tweaking it in beta. Since the trial was supposed to be the centerpiece of 21.5 they kind of downplayed it.
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What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Do you guys feel all Assassin Strikes should be normalized if Assassin Strike is going to be a big part of how Stalker competes in high-end dps?
It sounds like Assassin Strike is going to be a "must-use" in attack chain for big damage, but activation time varies a bit for certain sets. I believe if Assassin Strike is going to be THAT important, then every Primary should have the same activation time (much like how they normalize Blaster Tier 1 and Tier 2 since those two can be used during mezzed period). They can keep different damage type to preserve different "flavor" for each set.
If they should be normalized, what's the optimal activation time? 3s?
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
The HP cap being raised is the main thing I'm interested in. I've never thought it was appropriate for Stalkers to get little to no benefit from some powers available in their secondaries while no other AT that shares those powersets has that same limitation.
As for the rest, it seems to amount to mostly just more damage. That doesn't interest me much. I've pointed out that Stalkers having the lowest survivability while not having the top (or even nearly, especially solo) damage was out of whack. However I haven't advocated more damage as a fix for quite some time.
I do have some concern that getting more damage or a gimmicky new trick could close the door on other potentially more interesting changes. Still I've been enjoying my Stalkers as they were. Now that the HP cap issue will be fixed and I can play /Regen or any other secondary without the HP cap gimping it, I guess I'll take whatever else gets thrown in the mix.
Beyond the listed changes what I'd want primarily is the proliferation of more primary powersets with AoE intact. That includes Titan Weapons. I have no interest in playing that set on any AT other than a Stalker, so I won't be buying it until they get it. Also /SD and /FA.
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You won't be buying Titan Weapon then. Dev has confirmed at the meeting that Stalker will not get Titan Weapon. Of course they can always change their minds years later but right now, there is no plan on giving TW to Stalker. (tears...)|
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone
Beyond the listed changes what I'd want primarily is the proliferation of more primary powersets with AoE intact. That includes Titan Weapons. I have no interest in playing that set on any AT other than a Stalker, so I won't be buying it until they get it. Also /SD and /FA. |
Ugh..I hate this Titan Weapon set! I will not buy it. If they want to exclude stalker on purpose, then I will not support it. I don't buy that "theme" is the reason. They can very well change the name (like they did with Ninja Blade), change weapon looks and modify the set the way they've been doing. Theme is not the reason!
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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We'll have to wait and see how the alternate animation works. Are they really going to cut out the interrupt time and leave you with a 1s cast 2.5 scale damage attack? That's crazy good. Still good for NB and BS which would be 1.67s, but not quite as good. Maybe they will normalize it just for the outside of Hide version and we'll all have 1.5s cast or something like that.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
Do you guys feel all Assassin Strikes should be normalized if Assassin Strike is going to be a big part of how Stalker competes in high-end dps?
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Either way, it looks like getting a Tier 9 ST attack at level 6. I may have to start a new stalker just to see how much less it sucks to be a newbie stalker after this goes in. Big question for Street Justice by the way: Is this STILL going to grant 2 combo points outside of Hide because if it does... oh man! I bet they change that to 1 combo point outside of Hide. 2 point inside Hide.
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I don't, but I'm not against it.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
Do you guys feel all Assassin Strikes should be normalized if Assassin Strike is going to be a big part of how Stalker competes in high-end dps?
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I don't care whether one AS is identical to other ASes - I care whether the sets as a whole are balanced. That said, AS isn't the vector I'd take in balancing them. I imagine the out-of-Hide ASes will be mostly normalized.
's doesn't make things plural.
With these changes, I'm seriously considering going Something (undecided)/Ninitsu right now with my main, as my one disappointment with Stalkers has been damage (not survival, tho on my KM/WP I did wish for higher HP cap just so the bonuses werent wasted).
It's not the pairing I WANT (maybe when Staff Fighting arrives) buuut since I have no idea when Ninjitsu will be ported for that combo...grrrr...the choices!
StJ seems like a good choice, but I will be sad with the no Rib Cracking goodness.
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It's funny to note how "many" people have asked about the SJ AS, however noone (or very close to noone, even in Stalker amounts) have asked about the DB AS and it's combos. To be honest I think this will make DB somewhat of a more comprehendable set to use should the changes go through, as it won't matter as much should you get hit by enemies while in AF gathering mode |
Originally Posted by Zem
We'll have to wait and see how the alternate animation works. Are they really going to cut out the interrupt time and leave you with a 1s cast 2.5 scale damage attack? That's crazy good. Still good for NB and BS which would be 1.67s, but not quite as good. Maybe they will normalize it just for the outside of Hide version and we'll all have 1.5s cast or something like that.
Either way, it looks like getting a Tier 9 ST attack at level 6. I may have to start a new stalker just to see how much less it sucks to be a newbie stalker after this goes in. Big question for Street Justice by the way: Is this STILL going to grant 2 combo points outside of Hide because if it does... oh man! I bet they change that to 1 combo point outside of Hide. 2 point inside Hide. |
Also about people wandering about how much damage the OoH-AS (Out of Hide-Assassin's Strike, sue me for abbreviations :P) will do, I think it'll do the base damage it does, leaving the hide critical out, meaning about 140 at level 50 (assuming my sources are up to date). I also think they will cut about 1 or maybe 2 seconds off of the current AS animation, as my believe is that they'll animate by briefly entering the prepare stance and then launch the attack, or else they'll just speed up the whole animation X %.
Curious though, why are people talking about alternative animations? Do you think they will add them or has it been stated explicit that alternate animations will be used for the OoH-AS?
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2s for an "Superior" damage will be good because we already have Superior attacks like Total Focus but that attack doesn't have very high DPA due to long activation time. So in order to improve Stalker's ST dps, the new Assassin Strike will need to activate faster or do way more damage, or else it may not an improvement on overall dps (which defeats the purpose of this buff).|
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
It's funny to note how "many" people have asked about the SJ AS, however noone (or very close to noone, even in Stalker amounts) have asked about the DB AS and it's combos. To be honest I think this will make DB somewhat of a more comprehendable set to use should the changes go through, as it won't matter as much should you get hit by enemies while in AF gathering mode
Also about people wandering about how much damage the OoH-AS (Out of Hide-Assassin's Strike, sue me for abbreviations :P) will do, I think it'll do the base damage it does, leaving the hide critical out, meaning about 140 at level 50 (assuming my sources are up to date). I also think they will cut about 1 or maybe 2 seconds off of the current AS animation, as my believe is that they'll animate by briefly entering the prepare stance and then launch the attack, or else they'll just speed up the whole animation X %. Curious though, why are people talking about alternative animations? Do you think they will add them or has it been stated explicit that alternate animations will be used for the OoH-AS? |
Oh, dual blade will be much better then!
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Totally agree. I adore my stalkers already. I'll be really excited to see how they do after these changes. I know the thread title say "possible" but I hope these changes or some variation of them are available for testing soon.
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Originally Posted by JanusFrs
Me too Omni! I don't even have a problem with my Stalker in the first place, but this will just make them Killer!
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It's an "alternate" animation in the sense that it's not the same 3s+ animation that plays normally. It's likely just to be the same as before but with the hang-time frames in the middle removed to shorten the whole thing. By how much is currently up for speculation. The easiest way to normalize the DPA of this attack across all stalkers is to remove more of the wait time for the (currently) longer animating Assassin Strikes of Ninja Blade and Broadsword and less of the wait time for Kinetic Melee. e.g. You could chop 1s off of KM and get 1.67s out of Hide AS. Chop 2s off of NB's and get the same 1.67s.|
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
Curious though, why are people talking about alternative animations? Do you think they will add them or has it been stated explicit that alternate animations will be used for the OoH-AS?
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It'll be a shame if Ninja Blade and Broadsword have to have a full extra second of animation time on the shortened out-of-hide AS vs. KM. That'd be a big difference in DPA.
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Yeah that's why I think all Assassins should be normalized because AS may be a big part of dps improvement. Ninja and Broadsword shouldn't be at disadvantage and Kinetic shouldn't have advantage either.
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Originally Posted by Zem
It'll be a shame if Ninja Blade and Broadsword have to have a full extra second of animation time on the shortened out-of-hide AS vs. KM. That'd be a big difference in DPA.
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What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Arbiter Hawk succinctly summed up the Stalker improvements. I'll add this though:
Using Assassin Strike out of hide is still interruptible. It is the only way of dealing that massive scale 7 damage and inflicting demoralize. If you placate an enemy you are considered hidden and will execute an interruptible Assassin's Strike.
In practice these changes should feel pretty good. You can open up with Build Up>Assassin's Strike>Placate>Whatever and then go about hitting remaining enemies and building stacks of Assassin's Focus. In a more prolonged fight Assassin's Strike will be able to be used more than just an opener.
This change is also intended to solve the "very efficient team" problem. It's great that your team is super efficient at obliterating enemies, but it's a bummer for the Stalker because a spawn is often wiped out before they get a chance to land an Assassin's Strike. With the discussed changes they'll still be able to use the Assassin's Strike power and if they stack enough Assassin's Focus they'll be able to deal pretty massive damage very quickly. They'll be able to do this regardless if their team isn't allowing them to open up with an Assassin's Strike from hide.
I feel there is definitely a time and place for the Assassin's Strike from hide. The intent here is NOT to replace this power's stealth functionality. When I22 hits beta we'll have our eyes peeled to your feedback, as it will be critical to the success of these changes.
Don't get excited too quick guys... read the above quote from Synapse. Looks like Assassin strike is still going to be interruptable. LOL
I need more time to digest this.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Oh I'm ready! Bring on I22 beta!
If the tech is there to do it, AS out of Hide should be uninterruptable, IMO. There are just too many things that can interrupt AS in the full-team settings it is apparently meant to be used in to increase the Stalker's damage and team viability. Don't dangle carrots, devs.
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Does interruptle out of Hide mean...in hidden status and using it, or no hidden status and still interruptle?|
Originally Posted by Telperion
If the tech is there to do it, AS out of Hide should be uninterruptable, IMO. There are just too many things that can interrupt AS in the full-team settings it is apparently meant to be used in to increase the Stalker's damage and team viability. Don't dangle carrots, devs.
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That said, if AS becomes 1.056 - 1.542 (accounting for arcanatime) animation while not hidden for a superior damage attack, it may not bother me.
My 50 Stalker is a KM/WP. In that 2.904 seconds, AS got interrupted A LOT when trying to use it. However, if I can pull off the attack in 1.056-1.542 seconds without getting interrupted a lot, it will be worth it imo.
Keeping it interruptable may be the only way to balance it as well. Not sure if they can change the effects of AS when in and out of hidden, BUT a superior damage attack that recharges that fast for that much end, and it's drawback is it being interruptable...might not be a big deal in that short of an attack.
Of course, my idea of a superior damage attack, is one that does the damage of a tier 9 (or possibly a bit more) for some OMG DPS.
Add in it's demoralize capabilities.
Also agreed, will be a nice change for DB Stalkers, and might make me like DB Stalkers (still Id rather have Typhoon's Edge over 1k Cuts >_>)
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Looking over it again, they say the attack is uninterruptle on when used outside of hide, so why the worry? Using it with Placate and as an opener and it being an interruptle attack is what they do now. Making it become a superior damage attack when not in hidden status, doesnt seem bad.
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I am pretty sure Synapse said Assassin Strike will remain interruptable in and out of hide?
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Looking over it again, they say the attack is uninterruptle on when used outside of hide, so why the worry? Using it with Placate and as an opener and it being an interruptle attack is what they do now. Making it become a superior damage attack when not in hidden status, doesnt seem bad.
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What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Nope, just checked. When not hidden, AS becomes uninterruptle.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
I am pretty sure Synapse said Assassin Strike will remain interruptable in and out of hide?
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When hidden it becomes interruptle.
But there's also a difference in damage I'm sure.
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Ah, ok I was getting worried. If you're using AS out of hide it should not be interruptle. Again I still want to see how this pans out in game.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Looking over it again, they say the attack is uninterruptle on when used outside of hide, so why the worry? Using it with Placate and as an opener and it being an interruptle attack is what they do now. Making it become a superior damage attack when not in hidden status, doesnt seem bad.
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Though the proposed change does make Assassin's Strike relevant again, and makes Stalkers a bit sturdier, it doesn't really address the core issue. My fear is for this buff to go through, then still see Stalkers selected out of high-end teams.
Stalkers don't need more survivability, they need more damage, because it is the damage output they are criticized for.
If you stop comparing the entire AT to outlier sets Stalker damage as a whole seems decent, and these proposed changes seem only good.