Possible I22 Stalker improvements
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Bane Spider Surveillance do -res and -def and not cause aggro or drop you out of hide? Pretty sure it only aggros if you have an achilles heel proc in it.
|
Right now, I love the changes they have planned, and I don't think the increase in max HP will make a change to any stalkers but the few with +HP powers in terms of added survivability (I dont recall it being easy to max a /SR Stalkers HP). So I don't see this as overpowering in just giving more ways for more damage.
And it keeps it in line with the current changes in that it's more damage without actually upping the damage mod.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
On paper, this seems less outrageous than what was proposed and still keeps the suggested idea of boosting the capabilities of a stalker in ST damage. The attack is supreme while hidden and situational when not, but with focus, you can make AS a more viable basic attack.
Not only that, it still puts the player in a position to need to make a choice in utilizing placate. This choice is also a part of what I'd consider Stalker tactics. |
Uses for placate:
1. Solo I will use placate from range before closing on a group of Rikti with a drone so that I can still open the fight on my terms.
2. On my Street Justice stalker placate is used before Crushing Uppercut, guaranteeing a critical hit. Please note that CU hits a bit harder than AS.
3. If there is not hard target with significant hit points left, placate is used prior to Spinning Strike for a 50% chance of critical hit.
4. I haven't been playing it as often (because of the failure on the devs part to give EA a min FX graphic) but on my KM/EA stalker placate is used either prior to burstto guarantee 100% AoE crit or prior to the Tier 9 (if I have used AS from hide to open) to reset Build Up.
None of these are marginal uses of the placate power. The first one may be purely a comfort thing, but the last three are significant increases to burst damage. While it may not be the mythical "taking out a boss with one blow" that will never happen, opening a fight with a AS, SB, Placate, CU ends things right quick against most +2 bosses and against +3 leaves a sliver of health that is taken out from my followup Spinning Strike after the minions have gathered into melee range.
Again, while the proposed changes may not be so great for all stalkers, I am seriously looking forward to them, because on my primary stalker (StJ/WP) I will see significant improvement from all of the proposed changes.
Again, in my feeling, we need to stop comparing an entire AT against outlier sets. Yes a Fire/SD scrapper is going to kill us on damage, both ST and AoE. It is an outlier set, it destroys other scrappers on damage too. Same thing on a SS/Fire brute. Ditto a Fire/Traps corruptor (or Fire/Dark). Anybody noticing a theme here? It is not so much a problem with the stalker AT, its that with the introduction of IOs in I12, the lack of secondary benefits in Fire (that being that Fires secondary benefit was more damage) became no hinderance at all. IOs completely made up for the lack of a KB, Slow, -def, -res or what have you.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Personally, I don't like using Placate + AS especially when I am on a team. I know I won't do Placate + AS on my Kin/Dark (aura will interrupt) and on my SJ/Ice (CE won't interrupt but I won't get back to hidden either).
I have to de-toggle first and then Placate + AS. What a pain.
On a large or full team, Placate + AS is just so slow. By the time you hit Placate for 1.6s and then hit (and hopefully nobody interrupts you on a full team), you already spend more than 5s on just one target. I really dislike Placate + AS.
However!!!
I kept thinking how can we make Placate more "offensive". Well, one way is to add -resistance or -defense (like the aggroless Surveillance) like some of you have suggested.
Another one I can think of is to add +endurance or +recovery. I mostly don't use Placate unless I am fighting something hard or I have a good aoe attack. In the situation against an AV, if you don't have sets or if you don't have people fueling you +endurance, you are most likely going to run out of endurance before the AV dies. In that situation, I may just use 3 x Focus + Placate to fuel my endurance so I can prolong the fight.
I kinda like LEO's suggestion for the 3 uses of Focus on Assassin Strike. We can use the same thing on Focus on Placate.
One Focus + Placate = +15 Endurance
Two Focus + Placate = +20 Endurance + 5% Tohit buff for 10s
Three Focus + Placate = +25 Endurance + 10% Tohit buff for 10s
(Why tohit buff? Because nothing is worse than missing after Placate! You blind the target and yet you miss him??)
I am not a number guy but the idea is to turn Placate into more useful in prolong fight where endurance matters. Now by the time you are an incarnate, endurance may not be an issue (which is the case for a lot of ATs, not just Stalkers), but that's because most already bought sets to reduce endurance. I know my lower level Stalkers would LOVE to have a way to increase endurance. Remember, not every fight needs to be finished with Placate + AS. If there is just one trash enemy left, why waste the endurance? If Placate can give me back some endurance, I will definitely hit 3 x Focus + Placate so I have enough endurance for the next fight. :P Again, the choice is yours. You can choose to overkill in style or you can choose to fuel back endurance so the following fights have less delays.
And also, more AoE attacks cost more endurance. If I use Placate to unleash aoe attack, I need to make sure I have the endurance for them.
What do you think?
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.
Personally, I don't like using Placate + AS especially when I am on a team. I know I won't do Placate + AS on my Kin/Dark (aura will interrupt) and on my SJ/Ice (CE won't interrupt but I won't get back to hidden either).
I have to de-toggle first and then Placate + AS. What a pain. On a large or full team, Placate + AS is just so slow. By the time you hit Placate for 1.6s and then hit (and hopefully nobody interrupts you on a full team), you already spend more than 5s on just one target. I really dislike Placate + AS. However!!! I kept thinking how can we make Placate more "offensive". Well, one way is to add -resistance or -defense (like the aggroless Surveillance) like some of you have suggested. Another one I can think of is to add +endurance or +recovery. I mostly don't use Placate unless I am fighting something hard or I have a good aoe attack. In the situation against an AV, if you don't have sets or if you don't have people fueling you +endurance, you are most likely going to run out of endurance before the AV dies. In that situation, I may just use 3 x Focus + Placate to fuel my endurance so I can prolong the fight. I kinda like LEO's suggestion for the 3 uses of Focus on Assassin Strike. We can use the same thing on Focus on Placate. One Focus + Placate = +15 Endurance Two Focus + Placate = +20 Endurance + 5% Tohit buff for 10s Three Focus + Placate = +25 Endurance + 10% Tohit buff for 10s (Why tohit buff? Because nothing is worse than missing after Placate! You blind the target and yet you miss him??) I am not a number guy but the idea is to turn Placate into more useful in prolong fight where endurance matters. Now by the time you are an incarnate, endurance may not be an issue (which is the case for a lot of ATs, not just Stalkers), but that's because most already bought sets to reduce endurance. I know my lower level Stalkers would LOVE to have a way to increase endurance. Remember, not every fight needs to be finished with Placate + AS. If there is just one trash enemy left, why waste the endurance? If Placate can give me back some endurance, I will definitely hit 3 x Focus + Placate so I have enough endurance for the next fight. :P Again, the choice is yours. You can choose to overkill in style or you can choose to fuel back endurance so the following fights have less delays. And also, more AoE attacks cost more endurance. If I use Placate to unleash aoe attack, I need to make sure I have the endurance for them. What do you think? |
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
I want you to go AFK for a little while and clear your mind. Then, come back and read that and realize you're not fixing anything, and using an idea like "Do it like they do in Anime!" makes me wonder about something; how would they implement that in a game like CoX?
|
Please do me a favor and re-read what I said as I didn't say "do it like they do in Anime" quite the opposite. I gave an example including naming the tech to use of how to implement it in the game and simply said the effect would be similar to one used in anime.
And I like adding -res to placate, especially if AS is less dependent on it, that would make it more friendly for any other big attack.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
I prefere the idea of -Resist to the target of the placate as a way of trying to find their weakpoints.
|
I just want Placate to do something different other than providing more damage through +damage buff or -resist.
Oh well. We'll see. I don't think the dev would do anything about Placate but it's fun to come up ideas. And I know that I always run out of endurance during long fights unless I have several sets. The +endurance is for situation where killing one target isn't as beneficial as prolonging your ability to continue the fight.
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.
This changes are great ! Higher HP cap + more critics = Sexy !!
Looking forward to to play my regen stalker in RV ...
I don't think Placate needs anything. It will still be useful defensively and to follow-up with an AoE for the 50% crit (or 100% for the lucky few). I don't really get the nostalgia for Placate+AS, honestly. What's so great about it? Even on my soft-capped Stalker it was unreliable enough to be annoying. There are simply some AV fights where it is impossible to use thanks to damage auras. I'm looking forward to being the top ST DPS contributor on those fights, if it works out that way. Looking forward to it very much.
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
Though I do not have a stalker, I am really glad to hear of the improvements coming. My first ever villain created was a Ninja Blade/Nin, which i just could not get into. I hope with the changes coming I may give Stalkers a second look.
I just think there's too many -resist in the game already. Tanker got one too and Focus will make Assassin Strike a very good attack.
I just want Placate to do something different other than providing more damage through +damage buff or -resist. Oh well. We'll see. I don't think the dev would do anything about Placate but it's fun to come up ideas. And I know that I always run out of endurance during long fights unless I have several sets. The +endurance is for situation where killing one target isn't as beneficial as prolonging your ability to continue the fight. |
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
I don't think Placate needs anything. It will still be useful defensively and to follow-up with an AoE for the 50% crit (or 100% for the lucky few). I don't really get the nostalgia for Placate+AS, honestly. What's so great about it? Even on my soft-capped Stalker it was unreliable enough to be annoying. There are simply some AV fights where it is impossible to use thanks to damage auras. I'm looking forward to being the top ST DPS contributor on those fights, if it works out that way. Looking forward to it very much.
|
Won't help a few sets that are ST focused, but over all, it would be a nice improvement.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
You know that may be the real benefit. Make 1 AOE (preferably an PBAOE one imo) per set a 100% crit to go along with placate.
Won't help a few sets that are ST focused, but over all, it would be a nice improvement. |
At this point I can't wait to see how this plays out as-is. Also can't wait for Staff Fighting. Hope they don't screw it up in the port to Stalkers.
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
What I was trying to say is that the current game design so strongly favors AoE over ST, that I don't know if the above changes give us enough of a lead in ST to make up for that overall lack. There is a point where the ST damage is so high that even if all stalker sets were nerfed to remove all AoE it wouldn't matter. There is a point, a bit below that where I hope they make us end up. Since the changes are wrapped up so much in AS, I'm not sure that's enough to get us there until I play it. My other posts mention that if you give AoE back to the sets that lost them, make it weaker, I'm not saying make stalkers into aoe powerhouses, I'm was trying (and failing I admit) to say the game favors aoe powerhouses and I don't know if we can beat them yet.
Essentially, when we can be significantly ahead of scrappers on the rikti pylon test then we're there. Because all the aoe in the world doesn't help there. Personally, until AS can kill bosses in 1 blow and our other ST hits have higher base damage without crits than scrappers, I don't think we're there. But I'm willing to be proven wrong. |
Member of:
Repeat Offenders Network - The Largest Coalition Network in the Game, across Virtue, Freedom, Justice and Exalted. Open to all, check us out.
Current Team Project: Pending
You know that may be the real benefit. Make 1 AOE (preferably an PBAOE one imo) per set a 100% crit to go along with placate.
Won't help a few sets that are ST focused, but over all, it would be a nice improvement. |
Maybe Placate can give double-critical 100% chance? We are already seeing double-critical. It's just very rarely.
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.
Okay, I hate to disagree again, but personally I do not use placate to add to effectiveness of AS on either of my stalkers.
|
What about other players' stalkers? What about the primaries that aren't Street Justice or Kinetic Melee? What about the stalkers without high-end IO builds? What about the Stalkers under level 13 or 26 or 32? How you use your characters isn't always how others use theirs so singling out your perspective purposely ignores other variables and that's not something we should be doing when making fundamental changes like what is about to occur.
I'm still curious about people's opinion on the change from a thematic stance. No one has really bothered elaborating on that, that AS is ultimately harder to use and slower to get a marginally good effect when hidden vs the quick and most likely superior effect of AS when not hidden.
To me, it's backward on a fundamental level. Stalkers are suppose to want to strike from ambush and AS has its downfalls in that regard. But Assassin's Focus is there to aid when not hidden? But still does nothing when you are?
Again, I'm not arguing a buff to Stalkers, nor am I limiting the scope of the buff to a single initial burst. But it really makes what a Stalker normally does obsolete vs making that better. Those that never use AS or Placate > AS? Ever ask yourself why that is? When you determine the reason, try thinking of something to *fix* that...
Okay, now step back and stop looking at it from a selfish perspective.
What about other players' stalkers? What about the primaries that aren't Street Justice or Kinetic Melee? What about the stalkers without high-end IO builds? What about the Stalkers under level 13 or 26 or 32? How you use your characters isn't always how others use theirs so singling out your perspective purposely ignores other variables and that's not something we should be doing when making fundamental changes like what is about to occur. I'm still curious about people's opinion on the change from a thematic stance. No one has really bothered elaborating on that, that AS is ultimately harder to use and slower to get a marginally good effect when hidden vs the quick and most likely superior effect of AS when not hidden. To me, it's backward on a fundamental level. Stalkers are suppose to want to strike from ambush and AS has its downfalls in that regard. But Assassin's Focus is there to aid when not hidden? But still does nothing when you are? Again, I'm not arguing a buff to Stalkers, nor am I limiting the scope of the buff to a single initial burst. But it really makes what a Stalker normally does obsolete vs making that better. Those that never use AS or Placate > AS? Ever ask yourself why that is? When you determine the reason, try thinking of something to *fix* that... |
Because the tactic sucks. And as 'thematic' as it may be, it wasn't very 'thematic' at all. Congratulations, you took off a good chunk of boss HP. In that same animation time you probably would have done almost all of that damage in most sets with two-three attacks. Granted you didn't terrify anything with your gloriously gory display...
We get it, Leo_G. You enjoy Placate into AS and AS in general. That doesn't mean AS itself isn't outclassed or nearly by a lot of the Tier 9 Melee Attacks, and that Placate into AS is garbage. 'Thematically awesome!'? Maybe, I guess. Probably not.
Why is AS hardly used as an opener in the high end? Interruptible. The damage is fine but it has Snipe Syndrome; Interruptible attacks are generally not worth their slot. Generally. And since AoEs are generally flying upon engagement, it makes AS a lot harder to use. And asking your team to "WAIT FOR ME TO AS!" when they could have dropped their AoEs on the ground is TROLOLOLOL.
Nothing will fix the truth; AS is not an ability that works well in /most/ teams in an MMO. Is it good for soloing? Sure, but an ability designed almost entirely for soloing is poor design in an MMO. Solo Viability, not Solo Intention.
And Placate is just garbage.
Just catching up and freely admitting that I skimmed heavily over the last couple of pages so I may go over things that have already been covered. >.>
First: +33% chance to critical may mean "a 33% increase of your chance to critical", which would mean 10%->13.33%->17.73%->23.58%->31.36%->41.71%->55.47%->73.78%->98.13%, or a stack of 9 to guarantee a critical (with 8 being better than your chance to guarantee a hit). Given the confusion over how the Scrapper ATIO boosted criticals and the wording on it, that's what I'm expecting from that line; otherwise yes it's a bit silly.
Second: I agree with Leo - the shorter AS is bass-ackwards out of hide, because it rewards you for not being hidden if they trim the entire interrupt time out. You'll do more damage by trimming the animation time by around 67% and doing around 40% of the damage (counting a 10% chance to critical), especially when you eliminate any chance of interruption. Placate and/or hidden status will actually penalize your damage.
As an example, let's take a look at Energy Melee for how the DPA compares - it's got the generic 3 sec animation time, shared by most sets, so this will work for the largest number of sets:
AS from hide:
Scale 7 damage, 3.168 sec animation after arcanatime calculations = scale 2.21/sec
Current, out of hide:
Scale 2.5 damage * 1.1 (crit chance), 3.168 sec = scale 0.868/sec
1 sec trim of animation time (2 sec total):
Scale 2.5 damage * 1.1 (crit chance), 2.244 sec = scale 1.225/sec
2 sec trim of animation time (1 sec total):
Scale 2.5 damage * 1.1 (crit chance), 1.188 sec = scale 2.315/sec
Note that if they trim the entirety of the windup time it will be far more effective to use it outside of hidden status - you'd have a higher damage per activation and would never have to worry about being interrupted. I think they may knock around 1 second of the animation time away, putting it near the top (but not at the top) of other attacks - at 1.225 it's slightly above Smite, Ablating Strike, and Chain Induction (all at 1.222) for DPA but behind Soaring Dragon (1.25), with the higher critical chance from Assassin's Focus boosting it beyond those but probably staying behind Crushing Uppercut (1.472) and Energy Transfer (1.57).
For the blade sets and KM, here are the DPA numbers at 2.67, 1.67, and 0.67 seconds at scale 2.5 damage with a 10% critical rate, all in damage scale/sec (multiply by 55.61 for dps):
2.67: 0.947 <--- note that this is where KM's is now
1.67: 1.488
0.67: 2.976
As for normalizing the AS attacks - I'd like to see it done based on a 1 second animation. That way they could give EM back the old ET animation for it's AS out of hide, and Stalkers could point and laugh at the slow Brutes and Tankers while stealing their kills. >.>
Edit: Leaving the original there but greyed out, since it reflects things with the scale of AS as it is currently. However, based on the following:
The current design is this:
-While hidden Assassin Strike will deal scale 7 damage and will possibly inflict demoralize. -When not hidden Assassin Strike will deal scale 2.76 damage (this is appropriate damage for a standard 15 second recharge single target power). Each stack of Assassin's Focus increases Assassin Strike's critical hit chance by 33.3%. Assassin's Focus stacks up to 3 times. Critically hitting will deal an additional scale 2.76 damage. -Using Assassin's Strike out of hide will remove all stacks of Assassin's Focus regardless if you critically hit or not. Synapse |
In addition...
Oh. One thing to note (and this might have been obvious to some, but I think it's best that I spell this out so that there isn't any confusion) is that you basically subtract the windup time from the total cast time you guys see in the real numbers. For example:
Assassin's Strike for Kinetic Melee says it has a cast time of 2.67s. Once you remove the 2 second wind up the power has a .67 cast time. So, when you strike with this power out of hide, it will have a .67 cast time. The obvious problem is that some Assassin Strikes have longer cast times than others. Eventually I'd like all Assassin Strikes to have a 2 second wind up and 1 second cast time. This way you always have a 3 second total cast time (including interruptible wind up) when hidden and a 1 second cast time out of hide. Again, that likely won't come until after i22. |
That means that these will be the out-of-hidden status numbers for Assassin's Strike as proposed, after the powers are normalized (most will do this anyway):
"normalized" @ 3 sec hidden/1 sec unhidden:
scale 2.76 damage, 1.188 sec, 10% chance of critical: scale 2.556/sec
Now, just in case the normal chance of critical doesn't happen, and it's only with Assassin's Focus (33% chance per stack):
0 stacks (no critical): scale 2.323/sec <--- STILL higher than from hidden status (2.21/sec)
1 stack (33% chance): scale 3.09/sec
2 stacks (66% chance): scale 3.857/sec <--- Better than OLD Energy Transfer (at 3.838)!
3 stacks (99% chance): scale 4.623/sec
Until things are normalized, here are how the other sets fare:
Kinetic Melee: 0.67 sec, 0.924 arcanatime (we have a winner!)
0 stacks (no critical): scale 2.987/sec
1 stack (33% chance): scale 3.973/sec
2 stacks (66% chance): scale 4.958/sec <--- what is this I don't even...
3 stacks (99% chance): scale 5.944/sec <---
10% chance: scale 3.286/sec
Blade Sets (BS, DB, NB): 1.67 sec, 1.848 arcanatime
0 stacks (no critical): scale 1.494/sec
1 stack (33% chance): scale 1.986/sec
2 stacks (66% chance): scale 2.479/sec
3 stacks (99% chance): scale 2.972/sec
10% chance: scale 1.643/sec
Street Justice: 1.17 sec, 1.320 arcanatime
0 stacks (no critical): scale 2.091/sec
1 stack (33% chance): scale 2.781/sec
2 stacks (66% chance): scale 3.471/sec
3 stacks (99% chance): scale 4.161/sec
10% chance: scale 2.3/sec
Essentially what the change says is, "We decided to up Stalker DPS by giving every primary something that can outperform old Energy Transfer over time using only 2 attacks in between, only it's on a shorter recharge and doesn't have self damage. Oh, and you get it at level 6. Enjoy!" I'll admit, until I read the posts, I was positive that they wouldn't do this; they still may not, but if the changes go through as proposed I have to agree with the comment that Stalkers will suddenly shoot up the charts for single target damage once you add this in to your attack chains.
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
|
As an example, let's take a look at Energy Melee for how the DPA compares - it's got the generic 3 sec animation time, shared by most sets, so this will work for the largest number of sets:
AS from hide: Scale 7 damage, 3.168 sec animation after arcanatime calculations = scale 2.21/sec Current, out of hide: Scale 2.5 damage * 1.1 (crit chance), 3.168 sec = scale 0.868/sec 1 sec trim of animation time (2 sec total): Scale 2.5 damage * 1.1 (crit chance), 2.244 sec = scale 1.225/sec 2 sec trim of animation time (1 sec total): Scale 2.5 damage * 1.1 (crit chance), 1.188 sec = scale 2.315/sec Note that if they trim the entirety of the windup time it will be far more effective to use it outside of hidden status - you'd have a higher damage per activation and would never have to worry about being interrupted. I think they may knock around 1 second of the animation time away, putting it near the top (but not at the top) of other attacks - at 1.225 it's slightly above Smite, Ablating Strike, and Chain Induction (all at 1.222) for DPA but behind Soaring Dragon (1.25), with the higher critical chance from Assassin's Focus boosting it beyond those but probably staying behind Crushing Uppercut (1.472) and Energy Transfer (1.57). For the blade sets and KM, here are the DPA numbers at 2.67, 1.67, and 0.67 seconds at scale 2.5 damage with a 10% critical rate, all in damage scale/sec (multiply by 55.61 for dps): 2.67: 0.947 <--- note that this is where KM's is now 1.67: 1.488 0.67: 2.976 As for normalizing the AS attacks - I'd like to see it done based on a 1 second animation. That way they could give EM back the old ET animation for it's AS out of hide, and Stalkers could point and laugh at the slow Brutes and Tankers while stealing their kills. >.> |
Not sure about the +crit buff added by Assassin's Focus. Synapse never really clarified on that, but then I don't think anyone ever posted "So 10%+ 33%x3 stacks?" in the thread he's discussing in so the issue was never brought up. I didn't even begin to think those numbers were anything but a straight accumulative added chance vs a modified chance...But I specifically remember him saying Assassin's Focus only stacks 3 times and after you use Assassin's Strike (hit or miss) all the points are spent.
And the above numbers get worse when you add in Placate. Basically, you're practically penalized every time you try to use them as a pair...not trying to cradle the Placate > AS combo, but for mid-combat Demoralize, you shouldn't need to sacrifice so much...especially if they're just handing out free-crit AS >_>
It will probably be the exact same animation as it is when in hide except with the first 2 seconds chopped off.