WOW--Stalkers ROCK now

Logic like this is why I want them nerfed. Sorry. Just because 'they were so bad before! (they weren't BTW) it's okay if they're overpowered now!'.

I shall feast on your tears.

Thank you for your kind words.

Overpowered?! I don't really think so. Originally, the standard Stalker setup was BU-->AS-->Placate-->T9. Most Stalker combos were limited to this, and we were just....so squishy.

Now, with the AS out of hide dealing proper damage and Assassin's Focus getting us some nice crits, we move away from that combo, giving us a whole new level of possibilities. (I'm loving the KM BU->AS->CS->BU->B/FB!)

The ATO proc works wonders for us Stalkers, giving us the high ST damage we so rightfully deserve! Why are you upset? Have you gotten beaten by a Stalker in PvP?

Stalkers were always my AT of choice, and I'm glad they can come out of the 'lol stalkers' crap and silence the laughter. I don't get why you're crunching numbers to prove your point just because CU kicks ***. For all we know, the devs are looking to get the other sets adjusted, so stop complaining and bask in the light of the shadows!

Or, you can tell me the name of the Stalker that CU'ed your *** to hell and back in PvP so I can shake his/her hand!

You seem to have the wrong idea of what this stance is. Also, nice use of continuous ad hominem to deface my case. You're arguably not worth the time explaining to, but I always try to educate once before passing someone off.

Hint: "lol you're bad at PVP and are mad at stalkers." is the example of ad hominem. You can avoid it in the near future now.

Moving on now...

... Actually, you don't do anything to really counter my argument besides ad hominem and praising how 'overpowered' certain things are.

As and aside, this chain? Doesn't work.

BU->AS->CS->BU->B/FB!

10 Second Inherit Cooldown on that proc. Probably the only thing really keeping Stalkers from exploding into insanity. That said, not really the point here. Kinetic Melee's potential is limited due to that. Thankfully.

But... yeah. You're more or less just saying that it's okay Stalkers are overpowered now because they use to be weaker than Brutes and Scrappers before. That... really isn't okay. Granted Stalkers are NOT overpowered. Street Justice just has documented potential to be beyond an outlier, and flatly 'overpowered'.

Is it possible it isn't? It is, but there's people who were against the idea, and are now beginning to accept and realize that "Okay, this thing is potentially too strong. We should probably keep an eye on it with extensive testing."

Reiska, who was strongly against it before, also acknowledges if StJ is beating Martial Arts in direct Single Target, that is NOT a good thing. And it's already suggested Dual Blades is doing so. This is ALSO not a good thing.

Certain sets, StJ especially, benefited far more from the AS changes than other sets. StJ was balanced around average to above average attacks, and a single massively powerful attack with many perks that other attacks don't have.

Stalker StJ bypassed the need to use the weaker attacks almost entirely, due to how their AS gives two combo points and is one of the best attacks in the game.

It's not even a case of "Well Kinetic Melee is better on Stalkers and Scrappers due to their unique Concentrated Strike mechanics.", it's "Stalker StJ fundamentally bypasses the balance choices of the set. This is likely NOT working as intended."

It's a combination of all the Stalker changes fueled into the core properties of this specific set that is "Dangerous". I am not denying the other powerful contenders for Single Target Damage (DB and MA), but if StJ is too far ahead, it's a big concern and it likely does need to scale back. I am not asking for global Stalker nerfs, only that an outlier is scaled back and then the other melee sets can see improvements.

As it stands, many people agree on one fact; Martial Arts gave up everything to be King of Single Target. It DESERVES to retain that title. You can't simply buff Martial Arts to attain this, as it's already a VERY strong set. It got Power Creeped, and you need to address that creep. MA leads in STDPS on most other ATs, and yet kept (one of the better in the game actually) it's AoE.

On Stalkers, it tossed it out due to their odd mechanics choice back in Issue 6. A shame but a reality.

Could you drop one of the pointless ST attacks and replace it with Dragon's Tail? Sure. Not Thunder Kick, though. Nope. That needs to stay, sorry. It has to be Crane Kick or Cobra Strike.

Would that fix the issue? No. Martial Arts should still be competitive, right on the heels, by design. StJ can't lead that far above. Not if you want global melee set buffs... which arguably need to wait until at least the Blast Sets are dressed. They're all mediocre (Fire Blast is equal to rough average Melee Sets, if you don't know how bad it is for the Ranged ATs).

In conclusion, it's simple; StJ benefited far too much from the changes, and went from "High End" to "Dangerous Outlier". Time will tell if it is truly in Overpowered status, but preemptive analysis concludes it is an extreme possibility and needs to be watched very, very carefully.

Again, at the very least? It should not, in MA's current incarnation, out-perform it.

And, it absolutely should not dominate the other sets, by any means. It got too much from the changes. Scaling it back will NOT hurt the AT. People demanding it is left alone are playing StJ (I know for a fact Reiska has a 50 StJ twinked to hell and back, but has acknowledged StJ is too strong now).

That's that.

Scaling it back might backfire int he devs face, as it was a pay for set. And this was something I know I mentioned in the beta boards. Make sure the sets are good from the start, because nerfing them after people paid extra for them will just be bad.

Do I think MA should be ahead of StJ in ST DPS, yes. Why? Because it lacks AOE.

Now the question. How does an SO'ed build MA stack against an SO'ed build StJ in terms of ST DPS?

MA NEEDS Storm Kick to perform. Period. Storm Kick carries the entire set. Crippling Axe Kick is solid, and Crane Kick/Cobra Strike are decent.

It absolutely needs Storm Kick as low of a cooldown as possible to perform.

StJ, while it does survive off of Crushing Uppercut, still has (although not as good as CU, obviously), Sweeping Cross while CU is on cooldown. I believe a DPS comparison was done once, and I'll try to hunt it down. Regardless, even then, BrandX? I still do not accept that IO's are being ignored any longer. They are sold in the Market, they are gotten with all types of merits, and the devs SEEM, SEEM SEEM SEEM, to consider them more and more.

If I recall, StJ still leads even at SO levels. Oh, and it still has AoE, which is very important in teams because you need AoE to clear out trash before it becomes overwhelming.

PS: 'It's a paid for set it MUST perform'. StJ wasn't overbuffed. It was the unfortunate consequence of an AT overhaul. Adjusting it for the sake of game balance does not hurt the set. It will STILL perform amazingly well due to it's insane synergy.

However, sets like Beast Mastery, Dual Pistols, and other 'technically paid for sets' that are flatly BAD? DO need to be addressed. Since Fire Blast is equal to rough average melee sets, that means in the line of Damage Sets, Dual Pistols is near the bottom of the barrel. We didn't pay for that underperformance. And Beast Mastery is just a mess.

Personal attack? I just asked if any Stalkers smacked you in PvP recently, seeing as how you're not happy with CU's damage. All you had to say was no, jeez.

Okay, JUST realizing Stalkers lost Dragon's Tail, I can see your point. I always thought the sets oriented for ST damage should have at least one AoE, and those for AoE should mostly have PBAoEs and cone/ranged attacks.

Honestly, why have MA all for ST? I don't know anyone who's happy with a set of ST target attacks and not one AoE (I hate cone attacks). Why not just bring back Dragon's Tail? Cobra Strike doesn't seem all that impressive, and I don't think anyone wanted a set focused only on ST, they just wanted to utilize our most powerful attack more frequently.

And your 'Your chain won't work because the proc takes 10 seconds to activate', what makes you think most players actually keep focusing on using the same damn chain when they play? I just start off that and then use whatever the situation calls for. You have to realize this is a game, numbers or none, and not everyone really cares about utilizing the proper chain in order to inflict maximum DPS.

Thanks for the new term, I'll definitely keep that in mind next time I'm on the forums, and....yeah. Dragon's Tail in, Cobra Strike out, and then reduce CU's damage a bit if it can balance out. Everyone's happy then?

o.O Where did I even ask what MA needed to perform? I asked how it compared in ST DPS from one set to the other in just SO use.

Part of what makes StJ stand out is also it's IOs. MA is limited more in it's IO use than StJ. StJ is able to slot 3 Purple DMG Procs into it's attacks (Melee/Melee PBAOE/Hold), 2 -Resist Procs, and still put in the ATO Proc.

MA gets to slot 1 Purple DMG Proc and of course the ATO Proc.

That makes a HUGE difference. And why i ask what the numbers are on SO builds.

While now your saying a close eye must be kept on it, it's looking like a lot of what's helping it get to that top spot is IOs.

Without IOs, CU is on a longer recharge than EC. But like I said in a previous post, MIDS is screwed up somewhere on CU (as it's not changing damage on combo level select) Im just not sure if it's giving combo level 0, 1, 2, or 3 damage.

As for MA, I don't see why CS or CK would have to be removed, when it tends to be Thunder Kick that people skip.

And I agree that DP and BM need to be looked at.

Cottage Rule is one reason/ The reason it was taken out before was because it was "Remove the PBAOE" as the rule when Stalkers were created.

Personally I thought that was the wrong way to go since the beginning, but admittedly my thought was more along the lines of the PBAOEs having better animations than the cones, witht he better AOE being a distant second.

I honestly hate cone attacks for Stalkers, they're just not fun at all. I always pictured Stalkers as having sets that either have ST as the majority with one PBAoE, a balance of melee and ranged STs, or a set with a majority of AoE attacks. Cone attacks are just...disgusting.

How about getting Dragon's Tail back, removing Cobra Strike, and giving Eagles Claw from Hide the ability to guarantee a crit for the first 2 attacks? Forget the Cottage Rule on not getting PBAoE!

That was your answer. MA survives off Storm Kick. That's how it's DPS is even remotely comparable.

Not to derail the discussion too much, but I thought that wasn't the case.

So that you could theoretically get your AS recharge down to, say, 5 seconds, fire AS, get the proc on the 5th second in one 10 second time chunk, and by the time AS is recharged, you could fire it immediately and get the proc again, but it wouldn't work the next time 5 seconds later.

Which is technically more than once every 10 seconds. There's no reliable way to time that though, but I figured it's worth mentioning.

edit: Noticed the "unless you get lucky" part. Guess that's what you meant by it.

No. I mean, it has an inherit 10 second cooldown. It cannot mechanically activate more than once per ten seconds, regards of other circumstances. It's a hard-coded limit.

Reading what Synapse said, I can see how it can be confusing? IIRC another post later confirms it works as I said, and I've done a LOT of testing to confirm that. But maybe it's quirky?

Edit: At least I SWEAR he has been quoted saying it's basically a 10 second hard cap? I'd like to point out "If memory serves..."

All things said and done, I am fairly, if not entirely, positive of my claim.

That would be it, exactly. I should have just said that but tl;dr lazy.

Oh that's what ya mean. Well yeah, already knew Storm Kick was the work horse of MA. But either way, it makes MA comparable.

Is it that hard code the StJ build of theoretical 450 DPS isn't accounting for, and thusly can't reach 450 DPS?

The build isn't at fault here, it's a root flaw in all of StJ's attack chains. When you use the chain, you'll run into that wall the second you miss an AS prior to CU. When that happens, you have to short-change your next AS in order to fix your attack chain and make CU crit again. Ricodah didn't do any of that in his video, which hurt his DPS tremendously.

Will that make 450 DPS unreachable? I don't know. Maybe. As I admit numerous times, I'm not a great mathematician like some others(Werner, Arcanaville). Maybe the build can do more than that, maybe it can do less, the best you could do is simply run your usual calculations on the build and compare it with other build calculations of yours.

As a side-note, in my opinion fixing your attack chain mid-way should be rewarded with significantly higher DPS than everything else, as all other stalker primaries do not share this issue which requires a lot more attention from the user.

Perhaps you could just not fire CU after AS misses prior to it, and use SC instead. That would require a very fast reaction time though, considering AS's animation.

Sounds like it would. Alot of the top DPS chains, when calculating DPS don't tend to take into account missing.

But if they're (the player) capped on chances to hit (5% chance to miss then) 450 would only lose 22.5 DPS normally, but like you said, you have to wait to get the chain back on track, which would lower it's DPS, and repeat everytime you had to put the chain back on track.

So the 450 is sounding top end in a perfect, never miss world.

Of course, using clickie powers/inspirations will hurt the DPS as well (not as much as waiting to fix the chain of attacks) but if you don't need them, not much of a factor.

It seemed unfair to me at that time because Stalker doesn't get the FULL combo 3 critical value, while Brute's Fury enhances Combo 3 and Scrapper's base damage is much higher than Stalker's.

Stalker, at that time, also didn't have the new Assassin Strike and does not have Rib Cracker's -resist.

So yeah, it "seemed" unfair to me at that time and Synapse agreed with me but later he introduced the new AS and Focus system.

Am I clear?

There is no secrete that some sets got a lot more out of the new AS system. Spines, Electricity, Kinetic and SJ got a greater buff IMO. I am not sold that SJ is overpowering but I am sold that some sets are under-performing. If the dev wants to nerf SJ's damage, then other versions need to be brought down as well. And yes, "more damage" is what this Stalker AT needs. Stalker AT is not designed to be a tanker, meatshield, buffer, debuff, controller... Stalker's role is only to deal Damage. They can be fancy about it and add some flavors to each set but at the end of day, Stalker AT is all about dealing damage. And I do like using Demoralize on a team. I know some stalkers just scrap out.

Actually, the only thing I can agree on is some sets need to be brought UP first and then you compare them. Right now some old sets lose pbaoe but their ST ability is not greater than SJ.

Bring up the performances of other sets and then we have a more clearer picture.

I have both incarnate SJ and MA. While SJ has greater burst damage, MA has a much smoother dps. In regular game setting, that massive burst damage can easily be wasted.


And also, I don't think SJ is superior than Electricity and Spines. Elec and Spine with the new AS perform extremely well on a large team.