Question about Assassin's Focus

Assuming you mean the iTrials, because I can't think of a situation where my stalker in the normal high end game has been knocked out of hide by anything short of KoV Caltrops or CoT Crystals.

Eh, there could be more. But now I'm amused/annoyed by the philosophy "fixing" autohit powers knocking stalkers out of hide by making hide one step closer to irrelevant.

I think putting you back in "hidden" is just one extra step to get critical damage, and also sometimes I don't want to be "hidden" again because that means I may lose aggro. This is one of the reasons why when I play with a squishy friend, I need to watch out when I use Placate because I do not want to lose aggro.

The new Focus mechanism allows Stalker to scrap out just like every other Melee AT and also gets to use critical Assassin Strike efficiently without waiting for 8s, or using Placate or worrying about getting interrupted. And also, the goal is to turn Stalker into a Melee ST machine, not an AoE machine. If Focus gets you back into hidden automatically, then aoe-sets like Spines will get way more out of Focus effect.

There are a lot of "auto damage" and "burning patches on the ground" in itrials. And the pace and the sheer chaotic nature on a 24 or 16-player team just makes setting up AS very inefficient. Even when I am in a defensive god-mode, I still don't like to risk it.

It is not uncommon that Stalkers get to use Assassin strike once and then unable to use it again after the fight is over.

It's a gimmick to make Stalkers "not be Stalkers" and turn them into Scrappers. And like you said, it's to ensure that Hide is even less relevant to the 99% of game content that is Combat than it has been up until now.

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

The Focus mechanism does not prevent you from "hiding". Stalker still starts the fight with hidden and then scrap out just like most of the Assassin classes in online games. I know Witch Elf in War Hammer is like this. They can only stealth once to start the fight and once they reveal themselves, they can't get back into hidden again easily. I believe Bulgar in Lord of the Ring is the same way too. In fact, I think Rogue in Rift is the same way. I can stealth to start the fight (with walking penalty too!!) but after that, I just need to scrap it out like any other melee class.

The only difference is that CoX is a lot more faster pace. You can have one Brute jumping one from group to another and you may not have 8s to get back to hidden. Assassins in other games may have more "tricks" but that's another discussion. We do have Ninjitsu with caltrops and confuse.


To preserve "Stalker" style, they can make Placate better. Making Assassin Strike better doesn't take away Stalker's style. It just seems unattractive to use Placate + Assassin Strike that's all. I do agree they should make Placate better.

You say that as if that was the design goal of Assassin's Focus.

I'm hoping, if enough is said about the effects of AF on the AT, maybe the idea can be revised some before or during beta.

When the idea was first posted by Synapse, I suggested reversing the new AS, making it a 1sec activation when hidden and the regular interruptible animation when unhidden. Assassin's Focus can help AS over the course of an encounter by reducing/eliminating the interrupt time while improving its critical hit chance. Heck, maybe give it a chance to animate in 1 sec while unhidden...but the change would still make Placate > AS viable as a means of burst dmg as well as make demoralize more accessable.

I'm still not sure how much that would change the AT's damage. Players see, on the outside, that gaining a 1sec superior dmg attack after a few hits as really good, and it is...but so would my idea. It might even do, ultimately, more ST dmg than what the devs propose with the stipulation that it requires some of the playstyle we currently incorporate in playing Stalkers vs adopting a full-on Scrapper playstyle.

Making Placate "better" and more reliable ought to be Job #1 for making Stalkers more Stalker-ish. Easiest thing in the world to do is to reduce the recharge time on Placate for all primary powersets so it can be used more often. Second easiest thing to do would be to key some way to instantly recharge Placate off some circumstance of using a different power (or combination of powers) ... like how Concentrated Strike in Kinetic Melee instantly recharges Build Up with a Critical Hit.

The most interesting thing that could be done would be to turn Placate into a Target AoE so as to make the power more useful/reliable in "dogpile" situations.

A design goal ... no. An unfortunate and almost inescapable side effect ... most definitely.



So here's an interesting thought ... and it's probably something I should post in my [Counter-proposal] thread ...

What if Critical Hits with primary powerset single target attacks (other than Assassin Strike) gave you a self-buff that was essentially a "marker" which lasted for ... oh ... say ... 8 seconds (I'm just picking a number out of the air here). If during those 8 seconds *after* you scored a Critical Hit with a Single Target Primary Attack Power, you use Assassin Strike ... and not only instantly gain Hidden Status after Assassin Strike lands ... but your Placate power is instantly recharged.

Note that this means that technically if you've got this "marker" buff on yourself, using Assassin Strike from Hide wouldn't break Hide (although at the programming level, it might, due to event timing).

Furthermore, all of the Build Up powers could be coded to automatically give you this self-buff "marker" power in addition to all the other effects.

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

Like this?

Hidden:
- 1s animation time, interruptable
- Cause Demoralize

Unhidden without Focus:
- 3s animation, interruptable
- Does not cause Demoralize

Unhidden with Focus:
- Focus 1: Reduce 0.5 animation + 33% critical chance + Interruptable
- Focus 2: Reduce 1s animation + 66% critical chance + Interruptable
- Focus 3: Reduce 2s animation (down to 1s casting) + 99% critical chance + Uninterruptable
- Does not cause Demoralize but since your AS is down to 1s, you can use Placate + AS (hopefully Placate's casting time is down to 1s or less as well)

Key Point:
- Assassin Strike critical damage remains 6x bonus? We don't have to worry about Assassin Strike hidden and unhidden damage because with Focus, we should be able to fire off a real Assassin Strike with critical bonus damage.

---------------

This idea is not bad because one thing that annoys me when I am on a very good team is that setting up an AS takes too long to the point that I just either 1. throw an aoe out with BU or just simply use my heavy hitter like Eagle Claw. If hidden AS only has 1s, then I can at least eliminate somebody quick to start the fight and then gradually build up focus to release another AS fast.


I wonder which idea will take longer to code? Synapse or this? Do they need to do something special if a power has different casting time? Because with this idea, the AS will need 4 different animations? 3s, 2.5s, 2s and 1s?

Regarding this list, don't forget about some ambushes, as there are some in game that ignore, or see through to put it more motivating, you being hidden. This is especially a weakness if you're a non-defensive based secondary Stalker, like /regen and /elec.

As I see it, this will make it easier for my main (DM/Regen) to deal with unfair ambushes and tough battles (EB/AV). This said, my main intention with the new Stalker changes, which might as well be said at some point, is to only use AF+AS against ambushes, eventual double mobs and hard targets, as a means to not lose the feeling of being a Stalker.

Unfair ambush mechanics aside, here's what I don't get:

Why do players have such an aversion to using hide to get criticals? I think it was Jibikao who mentioned up-thread about not having to go through the extra step of going into hide to get a critical, and several have made the point about auto-hit effects knocking you out of hide.

But if you're just scrapping it out anyway there IS no extra step - the hidden status comes on and your next attack is a critical. As far as you're concerned there is no functional offensive difference between the two. And if you're scrapping it out in an auto-hit situation, then the odds are better than good that your next attack will be initiated before the autohit's damage tick can register so again virtually no offensive difference.

However, if assassin's focus achieved criticals through a hidden state, then maybe I might use that to a defensive advantage. Remember, when you're hidden you have fantastic AoE defense, and even something like 5% ranged and melee defense. Throw in combat jumping and/or a purple and you're likely to avoid some of that aggro while you escape. Hell, even if you are scrapping it out against impossible odds you've got a little extra defense to help you get a green down.

And just dropping you to hidden status might not be the best answer. My point is this: shouldn't developer thinking at least start with stalker mechanics instead of looking immediately to what is clearly a scrapper mechanic to fix stalkers? And why are we as players so averse to that thinking? Do we really all want to play scrappers and brutes?

Lately it seems that Hawk and Synapse have insisted on fixing the archetypes they're looking at by applying what seems to be working on other archetypes, and players by and large have been happy with that; so long as their melee scrapper-like or brute-like can be called something else at character selection we seem quite content to pretend that the gameplay isn't just like scrappers or brutes.

The result has been predictably generic.

You don't get the critical on placate sometimes because (a) placate is bugged. It's been proven, admitted and stickied. Just not fixed. OR you don't get a critical on placate due to being unable to attack during Placate's long animation in combination with enemy attacks that cue and land before you can capitalize on it.

You can't complain about being knocked out of hide based on how it relates to placate.

If, on the other hand, you attack right after achieving hidden status, your attack will critical EVEN IF YOU GET KNOCKED OUT OF HIDE before it lands, because you were hidden when the attack was initiated.

If assassin's focus were geared to give you an instant hidden state, then the latter of the two situations above would be the result. So long as you're following up an attack with an attack, an instant hidden state will result in a critical.

If I need to escape the battle Hidden state could give me just enough defense to do that - especially if I've positioned myself correctly at the fight's initiation.

But that's not the point, either. There are admittedly a number of problems with just allowing assassin's focus to just put you in hide.

The POINT I was making is that any new mechanics to the stalker archetype ought to START with stalker mechanics already in the game, NOT with what works for some other archetype.



So fix the "hidden" mechanic. How hard is it to write a one second delay into the code for dropping hidden? Even a half second delay would enable us to get our critical. If something on stalkers is broken, then by damn FIX IT. Don't slap on a band-aid from another archetype because so many stalker players seem to suffer scrapper envy.

This is a good point, and you are quite correct in that once suppressed, the defense from Hide doesn't come back for eight seconds.

So why not give assassin's focus the ability to grant an eight second defense buff by the same numbers?

I'm not talking about using Hide *as it currently is,* I'm talking about using hide *as a basis* for a new mechanic, verses scrapper criticals.

But what torques me is that the developers are ALL ABOUT THEME when it comes to designing and proliferating sets. Stalkers CAN'T HAVE Titan Weapons because it's not "thematic" and we nerdrage to the high heavens about it.

But when it comes to the problems stalkers currently have, they'll throw theme to the winds and paste any old mechanic from our nearest cousins on there and we as the community will RAVE about it.

I don't get it. I don't get "us."

But I shouldn't be surprised. They did the same thing to Peacebringers, most recently. Everybody loves Peaceshades, now.

Or people could play stalker sets that have AoE. As I have said multiple times, if you pick a set for thematic purposes, you are stuck with using that set, and shouldn't complain because the set is not as numerically superior as another set. Yes, there are multiple uses for placate and the hide mechanic, and AoE crits are a great part of it for me...

Personally I am really looking forward to the better ST chain, especially when it comes to leveling up a new stalker.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

We all nerd raged about it because it's denying us power options for no good reason as anyone can come up with a thematic reason for anything.

I don't see Assassin's Focus as breaking theme,here's why....
Back in D&D(2E,3E) the Assassin Class had a special ability called Death Attack. If the Assassin spent 3 rounds studying a target, they're next attack on it would deal Sneak Attack damage and could instantly kill the target. Now the studying had to be done out of combat, and while undetected by the target.

Because COX only has combat and doesn't really support out of combat activities Assassins Focus as proposed seems a natural way to integrate such a mechanic into the game.


Also Stalkers being a specialized fighter can quickly discern an enemies combat style, and set them up for an opening with 3 attacks on that enemy.

Focus is certainly thematic to Stalkers with these 2 views.I'm sure plenty of people can come up with other ways that Focus is thematic to Stalkers.

I also fail to see how Focus is being pasted from the other melee AT's.
Scrapper Crits are all about that lucky shot
Tanker Bruising/Gauntlet is nothing at all like Focus
The closest would be Brute Fury but I think Focus is different enough.
Yes they both boost damage, but the means and the control are entirely different

Exactly. I think at the end of the day, the dev just think the current "placate" and "hide" and "re-hide" mechanisms are just too unreliable. They want Stalkers to deal "massive" ST damage that is not interruptable. Focus counter is there so Stalker doesn't go too crazy on critical damage.

What the buff will do doesn't take away what we have now. You can still use Placate + AS but it may seem less effective because uninterruptable AS seems very effective! Using Placate still has an advantage because you can stop the foe from attacking you for a little while, or you can Placate one and attack another (just like Hold One, Attack Another strategy).

See, that's what I'm saying, though. For all the effort they're putting into making us more like scrappers, they could be fine-tuning our existing mechanics - like hide - to better fit with the current game.

Assassin's Focus isn't being pasted - it's being created. But its creation is based on scrapper criticals in that they happen outside of hide. Stalkers are supposed to be the "stealth" archetype, or so I thought. The one archetype with true stealth (outside of illusion controllers) that can only be seen by things that bypass that stealth. (which I still don't think is fair.)

But maybe that's just me. Maybe the new direction for stalkers is more like surgical scrappers, with controlled criticals and single target damage.

Except that single target damage is never going to be anything that a scrapper that throws indiscriminate criticals and splash damage around is ever going to envy. Or a brute, for that matter.

What made us stalkers IMHO was the ability to choose our targets and our battlefields, and that's something the current changes are ignoring. But it is what it is. It'll never change because of anything I say, so I'll just leave it at that and bow out.

Oh, and that study the enemy thing that Assassins do in your example? It's currently being done by Bane Spiders.

There is no doubt that many other ATs are stepping on Stalker's shoes. Stalker is not the only AT with stealth. Hell, Stalker doesn't even have unsuppressed stealth, Brute/Scrapper do!

However, I've played other online games like Rift, LoTRO, WAR and even Allods. All of their Assassin classes can only stealth to start the fight (just like we are) and after that, they have to scrap it out just like any other melee class.

The one big difference is that those games PROTECT their Stealth class by restricting access to stealth powers. This means if you want a stealthy melee, you must create an Asssassin-type.

What the new buff will do is to make sure Stalker tops ST damage in both burst and sustained. Yes, some people feel ST damage is pointless but I disagree. Scrapper/Brute will still out-damage Stalker in aoe department and that's fine.

I've always said Bane is a superior Stalker but we'll see what the new buffs do. Bane's biggest problem is speed. Almost every attack has 2s casting time.

Perhaps, this game's engine is really out-dated. There's really nothing fancy they can do about it. Once the beta is on, I hope people can test it and give more feedback. Besides just adding more ST damage, what else can they add? More controls?

Then fix the current mechanisms. Adding new ones is just adding new gimmicks. What happens when the game out-grows those new gimmicks? What new toys will we add then?


It also doesn't add to what we have now. It gives us a more generic way to fight that will be more effective than anything the traditional mechanics give. Why have them at all, then?

This is exactly what happened to Peacebringers. Once on a time a Peacebringer was equally effective in any form - it was just underperforming.

After the changes made Light Form more like Eclipse and Build Up more like Sunless Mire, shapeshifting on a shapeshifter suddenly became a sub-optimal way to play the high end game. The forms were just there to crutch your way through the lower levels with no noticeable boost to performance until you got Light Form and made it perma.

Now, a truly effective Peacebringer is a sight to behold, and that sight looks (and plays) a good bit like a brute with ranged powers.

I see something very similar coming for stalkers.

And Blasters, depending on their APP choice.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Unfortunately, the cat is already out of the bag with the Concealment pool. And doubtful that it's going to go away to "protect" the Stealth classes of VEAT's/Stalkers/Warshades, and those Control/Buff/Armor/Manip sets that have sneakyness capabilities. Bet it woulda been an awesome idea in 2004! ^_^ *not being snarky, more wistful, that there's an easy solution there, had it been implemented at the start.

On that note... I wonder when we'll get any new power pools, if ever...

Yes, your proposal would require 4 different animations for AS which is more work than I'd bother with for every melee set the AT gets.

This is why I'd propose something a bit more streamlined.

Hidden:
-Assassin's Strike is *uninterruptible* 1sec animation.
-Full Assassination crit value
-Demoralize

Unhidden:
-Assassin's Strike is *interruptible* and 3sec animation (2sec interruptible)
-Assassin's Focus
--lvl 1 = +6% crit bonus to all attacks, +interrupt reduction buff(?%, enough to make using it in combat decently reliable)
--lvl 2&3 = +6% crit bonus to all attacks, +33% crit bonus to Assassin's Strike
--lvl 4 = +6% crit bonus to all attacks, +33% crit bonus to Assassin's Strike, +25% chance of Assassin's Strike 1sec animation
--lvl 5 = +6% crit bonus to all attacks, +75%% chance of Assassin's Strike 1 sec animation

Placate:
-Spends 1 lvl of Assassin's Focus
-Assassin's Strike will cost 0 lvls of Focus for 10sec

Ultimately, this'd replace the team crit bonus so you'd simply be able to use Assassin's Focus to gain a similar +crit chance. Using Assassin's Strike would spend all your focus, dumping all your +crit for a strong quick/reliable AS mid combat or you can choose to wait, preserve your focus by using Placate and keep the buff lvl high. Of course, this is all relying on AF lasting somewhere like 20sec per buff and attacks being able to refresh it so it'd be easy to keep 4-5 lvls.

Another additional change I'd propose is a funny one...make Build up inherent. Rename the power 'Ambush' or 'Bum Rush' or something, then just add in the powers that were removed for this power. So sets like Katana/BS, Spines, Axe, MA, EM and what not would basically get the ability to 2x BU for bigger burst dmg or spread the buff for more consistent DPS, sets like DB, Claws, Kinetic Melee, DM and the like would get their on-hit buffs and could stack it for greater effect or whatever and the future Staff Melee can have its stances without needing to make a huge fuss about how to shoehorn BU.

This, of course, makes perfect sense only if you view Stalkers as an ambush AT. Be it ST or AoE, a Stalker is meant to get the drop on their foes and that's why Stalkers get BU in the first place...but at the cost of consistency during combat.

Depends on what attack you use. Did you use a long activating attack to initiate that hidden state? Then that could be clunky in, you'd have to specifically time this change to happen *after* the attack and not during at all otherwise it'd could be wasted. Did you use your better attack to initiate this hidden state? So my Katana character just split a guy with Soaring Dragon and *look* I'm hidden again! Now what? I just used my best, ST attack...I can see it as being an extra step in those circumstances but you may also be in a situation where you're under constant attack. On a resist based Stalker, having one of your attacks instantly trigger hide might be as good as useless as you'd be knocked right out of it (because Hide gives you AoE defense, not ST melee/ranged).

Depends. Placate only activates Hidden status, it doesn't unsuppress hide so you don't get any additional defense. This may or may not be the case for your idea but even if you proposed it to unsuppress Hide, there's still the case of the aura powers which require suppressing. I'd forsee lots of instances where, sometimes it suppresses and *then* puts you in hide but occasionally being out of sync and screwing the whole thing up.

I agree with you. Fixing Stalkers by adding a Defiance/Fury like mechanic to the AT may help but I'd always try to advocate something else more unique and thematic. But again, I was always told to just be quiet and accept the changes. Do people still say that? Don't you want to at least *try* to keep within the theme and tactics of the AT?